


living louder

by daughterofrohan



Series: desperado [1]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:40:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 47,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2682986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofrohan/pseuds/daughterofrohan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gunshot shatters the window and before he can even think about what’s going on she’s pinning him to the ground, her own body shielding his from the glass and gunfire. She stays on top of him long after the gunshots end and he wonders if she’s waiting for more gunfire or if she can’t move because she’s been shot. When he pushes her off of him and sees the blood, he realizes it’s the latter.<br/>“Asshole missed my heart,” she says weakly, coughing up blood.<br/>“We need to go.” </p><p>Or, the one where Clint is supposed to kill her and decides not to and then everything goes to hell until it doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I wrote a thing. I've written fics before. I have never published fics before. But I'm not going to tell you to go easy on me because 1) when has that ever worked? and 2) I want to know how you honestly feel. 
> 
> This is going to be multi-chapter and I haven't decided how long yet. I debated waiting until I finished to publish but then I got really excited and wanted to publish the first chapter. I have it partially finished but it's all out of order and stuff soooo updates will be sporadic at best but I will try my absolute hardest to update at least once a week. I promise not to drop off the face of the earth and abandon this story to the void from whence it came because I hate when people do that.
> 
> Today's title is brough to you by the song Living Louder by The Cab. If you haven't listened to it, I would recommend it as a life choice.
> 
> All writing is unbeta'd and if you recognize anything, it probably belongs to Marvel.
> 
> Enjoy! (or don't, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life)
> 
> And finally, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the States. Enjoy your food coma. ;)

He’s been tracking her since Makarska. His mission is simple in theory: take out the Black Widow. In hindsight, he should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Natalia Romanova. She’s Soviet legend. The kind that gives you nightmares. True to her name, she mates and then she kills, using her sex appeal to gain the information she needs before she slits the throats of her victims. She’s lethal and graceful and morbidly fascinating. But just when he thinks he’s learned everything there is to know about her he’ll see her reading Harry Potter books in Italian or feeding stray cats or dancing to Tchaikovsky in a hotel room in Bratislava at 3am. She’s so _human_. He wonders how many times he’s ignored someone’s humanity simply because they played for the other team. 

He’s been in Warsaw for four days now and he knows Fury’s getting impatient. Truth be told, he could have ended it a long time ago if she wasn’t so unsettlingly human. It’s easier to kill people when you can forget that they’re people. He’s been sitting unmoving in a cramped corner of her hotel room for hours telling himself that it has to be tonight. The longer he lets this go on, the less he’s going to be able to stomach the idea of putting an arrow through her heart.

It’s well past midnight when she finally returns. “You’ve been tailing me since Croatia and you really didn’t expect me to notice?” She flips a switch, flooding the hotel room with light. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

He draws and nocks an arrow in one fluid motion, looking into her eyes as he does so. Figures he owes her that much at least. But her eyes are different. For a split second there’s something in them besides the fear that he usually sees in the eyes of his marks. It almost looks like relief.

“Make it quick,” she says calmly, as she stares into the eyes of the archer whose arrow is trained on her heart.

He doesn’t move. He’s been working up to this moment for weeks, but now that he’s here, he’s frozen. She’s not afraid in the way people normally are when they’re staring death in the face. Her eyes are cold, hard, emotionless. There’s no spark left in them, no life. _Can you kill what’s already dead_? 

“You came here to do a job,” she says flatly. “So do it. Shoot me. End this.”

“No,” he says quietly, lowering his bow. He tries to reconcile her with the girl who dances to Tchaikovsky when she thinks no one is watching. Tries to piece together a girl who reads children’s stories with the deadly women in front of him who’s suicidal enough to step in front of his bow without a gun in her hand. Maybe her humanity is the act. Maybe she’s just tired. God knows he’s been there.

“Kill me,” she growls.

“Not until you tell me why you’re so eager to die.”

He can see the weight of it in her eyes. Emotion flickers there for a second before her face goes back to its cool, impassive mask. If he wasn’t trained as a marksman, he doubts he would have been able to see it. But his eyes are taught to notice the things that no one else sees.

“Why don’t you want to live anymore, Natalia?”

For a second, just one brief second, she lets down the walls. The Widow’s mask dissolves and the emotion in her eyes hits him like a tidal wave. For one brief second, she lets him see the pain and fear that has plagued her throughout her entire life. And then, as quickly as she pulled the walls down, she slams them back up. The entry into her soul that he’s been granted was so brief he almost thinks he imagined it. The only thing that gives her away is the slight hitch in her otherwise calm voice as she looks him dead in the eyes and says “I stopped living a long time ago.”

Suddenly he’s looking at her and he sees himself. He hears Coulson’s voice in the back of his mind. _I don’t expect you to understand why I’m giving you a second chance. Not right now, at least. But you will. And when that day comes, I hope you remember_. They’re going to kill him. They’re going to kill him when he shows up and she’s not dead and he starts talking about second chances. But now he definitely can’t let this arrow fly because he’s looking at himself as he was seven years ago when he was standing in a dark alleyway at absolute rock bottom and for some twisted reason, Coulson looked at him and saw something worth saving.

 _I stopped living a long time ago_. The words are on the tip of his tongue and they feel right, so he says them. “Do you want to start again?”

***

A gunshot shatters the window and before he can even think about what’s going on she’s pinning him to the ground, her own body shielding his from the glass and gunfire. She stays on top of him long after the gunshots end and he wonders if she’s waiting for more gunfire or if she can’t move because she’s been shot. When he pushes her off of him and sees the blood, he realizes it’s the latter.

“Asshole missed my heart,” she says weakly, coughing up blood.

“We need to go.” 

“You need to go. It’s not you they’re here for.”

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

“Yes you are.”

“You’re going to bleed to death.”

“A minute ago you had an arrow pointing at my heart and you couldn’t finish the job. Someone else just did it for you. Leave me here and let this end the way it was supposed to.”

He doesn’t know why he’s so desperate to save her. He has no reason to care. But she’s so small that she looks like a child bleeding out before him and there’s no fight in her eyes; there probably hasn’t been for a long time. He doesn’t know why he’s so desperate to save her but she’s beautiful in the most tragic way and this world has been so unkind to her and she deserves a second chance and he might be the only one who can ever offer it.

“Goddammit,” she says, staring up at him, blood still flowing freely from her shoulder. “Let me die.”

That’s when he makes his decision. For better or for worse. Fury will have his ass for this but he doesn’t care because she’s bleeding out in front of him and she’s a _kid_ for God’s sake, a kid who never got a chance at living and she’s about to die thinking that the world is cold and cruel and he wants to show her that it doesn’t have to be. And so he looks her dead in the eyes as he defies his orders and sentences her to the life she deserves instead of the death he was supposed to deliver.

“No.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sat down with every intention of studying for my physics final and instead I kept writing so here you go.
> 
> As always, my eternal love to anyone who takes the time to comment/review.
> 
> Also it's snowing in case anyone cares. ;)

She fights him as he tries to pick her up. She’s lost so much blood and she’s in no condition to be walking and she doesn’t want to go with him, but her strength is fading quickly and she gives up her fight before they even reach the stairwell. By the time they get to the bottom she’s unconscious and he’s running to the car as fast as he can with her in his arms, hoping and praying that the guy who shot her left her for dead and didn’t stick around to make sure. Sometimes he’s grateful for amateurs.

He lies her across the back seat of the car as gently as possible and ties his jacket around her shoulder tightly, hoping it’ll be enough to staunch the bleeding until he can get her to the safe house. At least he has a first aid kit there. It’s not SHIELD medical, but it’ll have to do, especially because SHIELD medical would ask questions and they don’t have time for questions.

It turns out there isn’t time for stitches either, so he pulls out a knife and a lighter, figuring that she’s unconscious and probably won’t even feel him cauterizing her wound. She’s lucky, as far as gunshot wounds go. The bullet went straight through the muscle and out the other side. There’s a lot of blood, but at least he doesn’t have to dig a bullet out of her. She twitches feebly as he presses the hot knife to her skin, but her eyes stay closed. Her pulse is sluggish, but it’s there. She seems stable enough, so he pulls his cell out of his pocket and leaves the room to make a call.

“Phil. There’s been a bit of a change of plan.”

_“What do you mean, change of plan?”_

“I’ll explain later. But I need you to trust me. I’m going to need an extraction tomorrow and I’m not coming alone.”

 _“Barton-“_ comes the warning from the other end of the line.

“Just…just trust me,” Clint says, running a hand through his hair. “Please.”

_“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?”_

He lets out a sigh. “Let’s just say I finally understand what you said to me in Omaha all those years ago.”

_“Don’t fuck this up Barton.”_

“Understood.”

He hangs up knowing that Coulson is only the tip of the iceberg. Fury’s going to give him shit for months, but as he walks back to the unconscious girl lying on his bed he finds he can’t bring himself to care.

 ***

She wakes in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room and for a second she can’t remember why. Pain shoots through her shoulder when she tries to sit up and her vision goes black.

“Easy, Natalia.” It’s _him_.

“Here to kill me, Hawkeye?” She knows his name. Of course she knows his name.

“After all that trouble I just went through to save you? Not a chance.” He takes a step toward the bed and she flinches. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay. Look. I’m not going to hurt you.” He raises both hands to show that they’re empty but for a bottle of water, which he holds out to her. When she doesn’t make an effort to accept it he unscrews the top and takes a sip to show her it’s safe. “You don’t have to trust me. But you can.”

When he holds out the water again she accepts it, reaching for it with her left hand because her right arm is bandaged and lying helpless across her stomach. 

“How’s your shoulder?” he asks.

“Fine.”

He sighs. “I feel like we could make this a lot easier if we agreed not to lie to each other.”

No answer.

He tries again. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Hurts like hell,” she says quietly. She meets his eyes for the first time and she’s just a _kid_ goddammit and all her walls are down again and he can see the pain in her eyes and it makes him feel something he’s never felt before. It’s protective, this feeling he has for the broken girl in front of him. He wants to shield her from the world that’s caused her too much pain in too short a time. He wants to help her pick up her shattered pieces and put herself back together again.

“Sorry,” he offers, pouring everything he can’t say into the word and hoping she picks up on the double meaning. “I had to cauterize it. You lost a lot of blood.”

“Why are you doing this?” He knows what she means. ‘This’ is saving her life when he was sent to kill her. ‘This’ is showing her kindness she doesn’t deserve. ‘This’ is offering her a second chance when she never really even got a first.

There’s so many reasons but they all involve his past which is something he doesn’t talk about if he can help it, especially in front of people he barely knows. Besides, it’s late at night and they’re stuck in a sub-par safe house and she’s recovering from a gunshot wound and he really doesn’t want to get into the specifics. So all he says is “I believe in second chances”.

She gives him a look that says she doesn’t really understand. He doesn’t blame her. He’s pretty sure they weren’t big on second chances where she came from.

She looks exhausted and he doesn’t blame her for that either. She lost an impressive amount of blood when she took that bullet. A bullet that had been about to hit him. He’s still not entirely sure what that means. His eyes are softer when he looks back at her. “Sleep, Natalia.”

“Natasha.”

“Natasha,” he repeats. And then, because he can’t help it, “Why?”

She shrugs with her good shoulder and he knows there’s a lot more to the story than she’s going to tell him. She looks him dead in the eye and says “Second chances.”

He understands. He understands more than she probably realizes. He knows what it’s like to want to leave the person you were behind. “Sleep, Natasha.”

 ***

When she wakes again it’s raining. She’s staring out the window when Clint appears in the doorway, two bowls in hand. The look on her face is sad, almost nostalgic. It’s another facet to her mystery; another thing that makes her more than just an assassin. He wants to know why the rain makes her feel this way but he knows she’d never tell him if he asked.

“Hungry?” he asks. She turns to look at him.

“Depends. Is it edible?”

“You wound me. I make excellent ramen.”

“Ramen is literally idiot-proof.” There’s a small smile playing on her lips.

“Point.”

Setting one of the bowls down in front of her, he drags a chair over to the bed and sits down, starting in on his own meal. “So.”

She twirls her fork idly. “Is this the part where we don’t lie to each other?”

“Who else is trying to kill you?”

“I assume you’ve read my file.”

He nods.

“You know about the Red Room.” It isn’t a question.

Another nod.

“I escaped,” she says simply. “They don’t like it when you escape.”

“So they want you dead?”

She laughs. A hollow, dead laugh that chills him to the bone. “Of course not. I was the best they ever had. They want me incapacitated and brought back alive. They want to brainwash me, reprogram me, turn me back into the mindless killing machine I was before I left.”

“You knew they would come for you.”

“Eventually,” she answers, guardedly. Clint thinks about that brief second of emotional turmoil she allowed him to witness last night; wonders if even that was a part of her act. But it couldn’t be. The pain in her eyes was something Clint had seen before. That was real.

“You can’t run forever,” he tells her, because it’s something he wishes someone had told him all those years ago. “Sooner or later it catches up with you.”

“It did. Last night. I didn’t want to die. Not really. But I don’t want to become a monster again either. I figured that if I had to choose between the two, I’d take your arrow. Figured I could trust you to make it fast.”

“What if I told you that you could be free? Forever.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “How?”

“SHIELD can protect you.”

“SHIELD wants me dead. I don’t blame them.”

“Not if you can give them information. Intel on the Red Room. Ivan Petrovich. The KGB. You can help us take down the people you used to work for and then you’ll never have to hide again.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t believe you.”

Clint takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “Seven years ago I was at rock bottom. I was a killer for hire, working for the highest bidder. I didn’t want to live anymore but I was too much of a coward to end it myself. That’s how Coulson found me on the back streets of Omaha. I was waiting for him to kill me and instead he offered me a job.”

Her face is impassive as she takes in his words. He wants to believe that he’s getting through to her. He can’t explain it, this insane desire to bring her back to SHIELD with him, but he knows that she could be so much more than she is now.

She doesn’t look at him when she speaks. “I’ve killed too many people. Too many good people.”

“I know. I’ve been there. And you can never really fix it. You can’t make it right again. But you can make it equal.”

She stares at her hands.

“Come to SHIELD with me.”

“Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a struggle and a half to write so apologies in advance. I kind of know where I'm going with this, it's actually getting there that's the problem. ;)
> 
> Anyways, death by finals starts on Monday and I'll be doing nothing but studying mechanics and thermodynamics for the next ten days so I figured I'd better post SOMETHING before then since I'm supposed to be doing that thing where I don't fall off the face of the earth. 
> 
> As always, enjoy (or don't, it's up to you), and maybe leave a comment with your thoughts if you feel so inclined. <3

They leave the safe house at two in the morning; Clint carrying an unmarked duffel and Natasha with her arm in a makeshift sling, wearing an oversized pair of Clint’s sweats because her clothes are drenched with blood and they neglected to grab her luggage when they fled her hotel room. Clint climbs into the SHIELD car that’s waiting at the curb, and Natasha follows. He’s trying to get a read on her but she’s nothing but cool, calm, and professional. The car takes off and she stares straight ahead, unmoving.

Coulson meets them at the quinjet, an amused look on his face when he sees Natasha. “Barton,” he says, and he sounds like he’s trying to stifle a laugh. “You literally had _one job_.”

“Gotta spice things up somehow, Phil.” Clint claps the older man on the shoulder. “Admit it. Your life would be boring as hell without me.”

  
“Point,” says Coulson, laughing.

Natasha’s torn between confusion and intrigue at the scene unfolding in front of her. These are spies. Professionals. But they treat each other like friends, like _brothers_. She’s never had a friend before. She’s never wanted one until now.

Coulson turns to her and the smile on his face is warm and genuine. “Agent Phil Coulson. Pleasure to meet you Miss…?”

“Romanoff,” she supplies. “Natasha Romanoff.”

“We’ve heard quite a bit about you, Miss Romanoff.”

“Only good things, right?” she asks, turning to Clint. The laugh she gets in response is so genuine that it takes her by surprise. She decides it’s a sound she wants to hear more often.

“Clint says you have information for us.” Coulson settles easily into a seat across from her and Clint. He’s not afraid of her which throws her for another loop. In the past men have only looked at her with one of two emotions, fear or desire.

“Information, in exchange for my life.”

He smiles at her. “I think we can make that work.”

 ***

They spend most of the flight to SHIELD’s New York base in silence. When they arrive and disembark, there’s a woman waiting for them, her dark brown hair pulled back into a businesslike bun. She addresses Coulson. “Director Fury sent me. He wants to speak to all…three of you.” Her eyes glance over Clint and land on Natasha. She holds out a pair of handcuffs. “Miss Romanoff, you’ll need to wear these as a safety precaution.”

“That won’t be necessary, Hill.” The voice is Clint’s.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s necessary, Agent Barton,” Hill replies in a clipped voice. “It’s standard SHIELD protocol.”

“Fuck protocol. How much damage do you really think she’s going to do with that shoulder?”

“I once killed seven men with a dislocated hip and three bullets in my stomach,” Natasha says.

“You’re not helping your case, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Hill sighs. “I don’t get paid enough for this job.”

In the end Hill agrees to ditch the handcuffs and, with a bitter expression on her face, leads the way to Fury’s office.

“Maria Hill, Fury’s second in command,” Clint mutters into Natasha’s ear. “I’d tell you she’s not always like this but we agreed not to lie to each other.”

“I heard that, Barton!” she calls back over her shoulder.

 ***

“Barton!” Fury barks as soon as Hill ushers the three of them into his office. “Not only did you jeopardize your mission, you put our whole entire organization in danger. What the _hell_ were you thinking? _Were_ you even thinking?”

“No, sir.”

“If this goes to shit, it’s on your head. Get out of my sight.” Clint leaves and Fury turns to Coulson. “You authorized this mess.”

“Technically-“

“I don’t care about technicalities. Get out.”

Coulson exits and Natasha finds herself alone in the office with Fury. “I hear you have information for us, Miss Romanoff.” He levels her with the gaze of his one good eye.

She meets his gaze dead on. “You have to understand what I’m risking by doing this. There are worse things I could lose than my life if the Red Room finds me again.”

“They won’t. You’ll be under SHIELD’s protection so long as you remain loyal. But one wrong move and I will personally finish Agent Barton’s job for him. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Meet me back here at 10am tomorrow and we can start working through what you know. We’re going to need some tests done as well. Espionage, field combat, psych evaluation, medical clearance, all fairly simple. Standard SHIELD protocol for all new field agents.” He smiles at her, actually _smiles_ as he says “Welcome to SHIELD, Agent Romanoff.”

 ***

Clint and Maria Hill are still standing in the hallway when Natasha exits Fury’s office. “You look like you’re still in one piece,” Hill says, giving her a once-over. “Must be a good day.”

Clint’s the picture of ease, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “How’d it go?”

“Not bad. He threatened to kill me and then offered me a job.”

Clint laughs. “Yeah. He does that. When do you start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Romanoff,” Hill says, all business. “With me. SHIELD’s assigned you temporary living quarters but I think we should stop by medical first to get that shoulder checked out.”

There’s no way she’s going to medical. Defecting to SHIELD was a big enough step. She’s not about to let their doctors touch her. Not yet, anyways. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse.”

Hill shakes her head. “You’re just like Barton. Impossible. Come on, let’s get you settled in.”

Her living quarters, it turns out, are just down the hall from Clint’s. It might be a coincidence, but she’s fairly sure it isn’t. He’s probably been tasked with keeping an eye on her or something. After all, it’s his fault that she isn’t dead, and despite the conversation she’s just had with Fury, she’d be stupid to think that he trusts her. Trust is earned. That’s one thing the Red Room taught her right.

 ***

SHIELD’s living quarters are temporary only in name. Most field agents live there permanently, when they’re not in the field that is. Natasha’s no stranger to the whole living-on-base thing, but SHIELD accommodations are a step up from the Red Room’s barracks. It’s a pretty standard no-frills bedroom-bathroom type thing with stark white walls that remind her of the inside of a hospital. It’s not a home, but Natasha Romanoff doesn’t have a home. She thinks Natalia Romanova had one once, but the memory is too foggy and unreliable to be trusted.

Once the door closes behind her she pulls her arm out of the makeshift sling. The lack of pain isn’t worth the annoyance of not being able to move her arm, and she really has had worse.

The few clothes in the closet are all black or dark grey and Natasha’s not sure if they’re standard issue or if they were left behind by some other field agent. She decides that it doesn’t really matter. Finding a pair of leggings that look to be around her size, she kicks off Clint’s oversized sweatpants and pulls them on, deciding that she’s going to go shopping when she gets her first SHIELD paycheck.

She sits on the bed and stares at the wall in front of her, waiting to _feel_ something because right now she just feels numb. She just defected to an enemy organization and she’s finally free from the Red Room and the fear that’s plagued her all her life and she’s surrounded by people who, for some reason, want to help her instead of killing her and she feels _nothing_. Her whole life has been dedicated to trying to escape the Red Room. She never thought about what she’d do once she managed it. Her lack of a plan bothers her more than she wants to admit.

A knock on the door startles her out of her reverie. “I think it’s open.”

It’s Clint. Of course it is. Nobody else on this base knows her or has any reason to want to talk to her. His eyes drift from his sweatpants lying abandoned on the ground to her bandaged shoulder and then finally to her face. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine.”

“No lies, remember?”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just…a lot to take in.”

Clint nods. He’s been there. “You’ll get used to it. Want to grab coffee?”

“Don’t you have a job to do?”

He looks down at his feet, embarrassed. “I…uhhh…well, I’m on temporary probation. For not doing my job. And I’m also sort of supposed to be keeping an eye on you but I figured I could do that just as easily somewhere with coffee.”

It makes sense. Punish him by pulling him out of the field and making him keep watch over the girl he was supposed to kill. Until she’s ready to go into the field herself, presumably. “Am I even allowed off base?”

“You’re not a prisoner, Natasha.”

“I kind of feel like one.”

“I know how to fix that. Come on. Coffee.”

“How do you know I even like coffee, Barton?”

He stares at her incredulously and she wants to laugh, but she doesn’t. The numbness from earlier is still inside her, swallowing up the laugh before it can get out. The most she can offer him is a small smile. He takes it though, smiling back in return before leading the way out of her room.

 ***

The coffee shop is an easy half mile walk from base and she can see right away why Clint likes it. There’s a fireplace and soft jazz music playing in the background and big windows that allow for easy people-watching. It’s peaceful.

Clint buys them coffee because Natasha doesn’t have any money and she makes a disapproving noise as she watches him pour liberal amounts of cream and sugar into his cup.

“What’s the point in drinking it if it doesn’t taste good?” Clint counters. He nods at her cup. “Let me guess. Black?”

“Like my heart.”

“You actually like it like that?”

“What, my heart or the coffee?”

“Romanoff.”

She sits down at a table in the corner and he sits opposite her, leaning back in his chair with practiced ease. “I drink it for the caffeine, not the taste.”  
“So you don’t actually like it black.”

She takes a sip from her cup. “I never said that.”

“When’s the last time you’ve done something because you genuinely enjoyed it? No ulterior motive?” He thinks he knows the answer but he wants to see what she says.

She stares at him for a while before she answers. “I like to read but…”

“But?”

“But it always feels like I’m looking for myself in the stories. I’m reading to find myself or I’m reading to escape, and I’m never sure which one it is.”

He wants to ask her if she dances to escape too, but he feels like that’s the kind of question that would make her run off. He’s slowly chipping away at her walls but he knows it won’t be easy. God knows it wasn’t easy for him either. It took him months to let Coulson in and that was only the first step. But Coulson’s good at fixing broken people. Clint feels like a blind man trying to navigate a maze.

Natasha’s staring out the window and she has a look in her eyes like she’s looking but not actually seeing. “What do you want from me?” she asks suddenly, turning back to face him.

“What do you mean?”

“Everybody always wants something from me. Nothing’s free. You saved my life when you were supposed to kill me. What do you want from me?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Really?” Her eyes are cold. “What’s it like then?”

“I looked at you and I saw something worth saving.”

“You were wrong.”

“Natasha-“

“I’m a monster. A killer. That’s all I know how to be.”

“You’re more than that, you’re-“

“You don’t know anything. They took away everything that made me human. I’m a shell, Barton, I’m a fucking _shell_ and I’m never going to be able to get back what they stole from me. You have no idea what that’s like.”

“If you’d just let me help you-“

  
“You should have let me die.” And then she’s gone, slipping out the door and mingling with the Saturday afternoon crowd, half-empty coffee cup abandoned on the table. Clint picks up her coffee and takes an experimental sip. It’s strong and bitter, like Natasha. He wonders if maybe she drinks her coffee black because she doesn’t know how to be any other way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This bad habit of writing when I should be studying for stats and physics REALLY needs to stop.
> 
> In the meantime, enjoy! There's a chance that this might be the last thing I post until finals are over. There's an equal chance that I'll give up on studying altogether and devote my life to writing so I guess stay tuned? I am an actual mess. This is what finals does to me.

Natasha walks back to base alone. For a second she thinks that she could leave, go anywhere. There’s nothing stopping her. Nothing but the fact that the Red Room is still out there, still looking for her. She knew she’d never be able to outrun them indefinitely. Warsaw was proof of that. She can run, but they’ll run after her and eventually her past will catch up. Or she can stay at SHIELD and help dismantle the Red Room for good and then she’ll really be free. So she goes back to base.

She reaches the door to her living quarters at the same time as Coulson does. “I was just looking for you,” he says, offering her the warm smile that seems to be his trademark. “Where’s Barton?”

She shrugs her left shoulder. “Probably out somewhere drinking coffee with way too much sugar in it and pretending that he understands what I’m going through.”

“He means well.”

“He told me you brought him in.”

Coulson nods. “That was back in my field days. I found him in a back alley in Omaha, wanting to die. But he wanted to live just a little bit more. I could see it in his eyes. He just didn’t have a reason to keep living. I asked him if he wanted one. But that’s his story to tell. I came to bring you these.” He holds out a pair of throwing knives. “Welcome to SHIELD.”

Natasha takes them, running her thumb along the sharpened steel edge of one blade. She feels comfortable now that she has a weapon in her hands. It’s the most at ease she’s felt since she’s been at SHIELD. “Thank you.” Her voice is quiet. They stand in silence until she finally voices the question she’s been wondering this whole time, ever since she woke up in the safe house in Warsaw. “Why is everyone being so nice to me?”

There’s a look almost like pity in Coulson’s eyes and it makes her angry. She doesn’t want their pity. She doesn’t want their kindness. Why aren’t they treating her like the monster that she is? “You’re not a monster Natasha,” he says, and it takes her a moment to realize that she’s spoken out loud. “You’re a person who never had a choice. The Red Room made you into a killer but you can remake yourself. If you want to.”

“I don’t know how.”

He nods. “It takes time. But don’t be so quick to write Clint off. He’s trying to help you in the best way he knows how. He knows what it’s like to lose everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I said,” Coulson answers as he starts off down the hallway, “that’s his story to tell.”

Natasha watches him walk away, the two knives grasped tightly in her hands. She wishes he wasn’t so kind to her. It would make it easier for her to hate him. Eyes stinging, she lets herself into her room and locks the door before collapsing on the bed. She hates them all for trying to empathize with her. She doesn’t deserve empathy.

She stares up at the ceiling and tries not to let her thoughts consume her but it doesn’t work. So she takes one of Coulson’s knives in her hand and runs the blade across her wrist once, twice, three times. With blood running down her arm and her body heaving with dry sobs, she finally lets herself feel. She doesn’t know how long she lies there. At one point someone knocks on the door but she doesn’t answer and they don’t persist. She drifts out of waking and sleeping and nightmares, always nightmares. She uses the bite of steel to separate dreams from reality and by morning her arms are covered in red lines and her blood is staining the sheets. She revels in the pain because it means she’s still capable of feeling.

 ***

The morning is a blur of physical tests and medical tests and a psych evaluation that she fakes her way through and then Fury is welcoming her to SHIELD again (officially this time) and they’re issuing her an ID and fitting her for a uniform and she’s an actual legitimate SHIELD agent but none of it feels real. The only thing that feels real is the burn on her arms from the dozen cuts that she’s covering up with the sleeves of Clint’s hoodie that she still hasn’t given back.

Coulson stops her in the hallway again as she’s walking back from her medical exam. “You’re on my team,” he says, smiling.

“What?”

“You’re on my team. I’m going to be your handler when you’re in the field. While you’re starting out, at least. Sometimes SHIELD likes to switch things up but for now it looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Natasha doesn’t know what to say so she says nothing. That doesn’t deter Coulson. “Fury was really impressed by you, you know. Your espionage is better than anything we’ve ever seen and your field combat is phenomenal for someone who just took a gunshot to the shoulder. You’ll be clear to train in about a week and we’ll see about getting you into the field next month. Fury thinks you’d be useful in helping us to take down the Red Room.” He smiles at her again. “Welcome to SHIELD, Agent Romanoff.”

Agent Romanoff. She has to admit, she likes the sound of that.

Natasha’s about to go back to her room and probably stare at the ceiling some more but Clint’s door catches her eye and it makes her think about how she hasn’t spoken to him since she ran out of the coffee shop yesterday. Hesitantly, she knocks.

“Open,” he calls.

She opens the door slowly. While Natasha’s living quarters are bare and reminiscent of an asylum, Clint’s almost turned his into a home. The harsh overhead lights have been abandoned in favour of a soft lamp. The bed is covered in a mess of colourful blankets and there’s a coffee maker on the dresser. A large world map is pinned to the wall beside the bed, covered in red dots that mark various cities. He follows her gaze as she stares at the dots, trying to discern a pattern.

“Cities you’ve been to?” she asks casually.

He shrugs. “Something like that.”

Natasha remembers Coulson’s words from last night. _He knows what it’s like to lose everything. Like I said, that’s his story to tell_. She’s not the only one with secrets.

He’s still looking at her and she’s suddenly self-conscious of the fact that she’s standing in the doorway so she takes a step forward and lets the door fall shut behind her. He looks at her expectantly but she doesn’t know what she came here to say. She doesn’t even know if she came here to say anything.

“So I heard you’re an official field agent now. Agent Romanoff.”

She lets out a breath. “Yeah. I passed.”

“You did more than just pass. Fury must love you. You bypassed the entire Academy. _Nobody_ does that. I even had to go through the Academy. But you, they’re just throwing you straight in the field. You must be good.”

She shrugs. “I’m alright.”

They lapse back into silence. Natasha knows that Clint is still watching her so she looks at the floor, the window, the map on the wall, anywhere but his face.

“I’m sorry.” The words spring to her lips, unbidden.

“I know.”

“How?” She hadn’t even known herself until now.

“You wouldn’t have come here unless you were.” She feels a sudden burst of anger at the fact that he can know something about her that she doesn’t even know herself. “I’m sorry too,” he says, and she finally looks up to meet his eyes.

“For what?”

“Trying to understand what you’ve been through.”

“You might understand,” she says slowly, unsure. “More than most people.”

“What did Coulson tell you?”

“Nothing.” It’s not a lie. “He said it wasn’t his story to tell.”

Clint nods once, but doesn’t elaborate. The burning in her arms reminds her that he’s entitled to his secrets just as she’s entitled to hers.

“You hungry?” he asks suddenly.

She is now that he’s mentioned it. She nods.

“Perfect. It’s time for you to experience the wonders of the SHIELD cafeteria.”

 ***

“They’re staring at me,” Natasha says quietly as she follows Clint into the cafeteria.

“You’re new,” he explains. “And…uh…you’re also a world renowned killer. They might be a little nervous.” He doesn’t add that they’re staring at her because she’s beautiful and fascinating and lethal and graceful all at once. That thought takes him to places that he doesn’t want to go to.

“They’re scared of me.”

“It’s possible.”

“You’re not scared of me.” It isn’t a question and he doesn’t answer, just continues weaving his way through tables until they reach one in a corner.

“No, I’m not.” Clint takes a seat with his back to the wall. “Does that scare you?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Picking up strays again Barton?” A man slides into the seat next to Clint. His shirt is damp with sweat and he looks like he just got out of the training room.

“Fuck off, Sitwell.” Sitwell laughs as he gets back up, brushing his arm against Natasha’s shoulder as he walks away. She tenses. “Easy,” Clint says softly. He knows she’s on edge. Not for the first time, his heart breaks for her as he imagines what she’s been through to have this level of distrust in people. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

She rolls her eyes at his cheeseburger and fries, and he scoffs at her salad. “It’s healthy.”

“That’s not food, Romanoff. That’s what food _eats_.”

“I’ll remember that when I’m visiting you in the hospital after your heart attack.”

“You’re going to visit me? That’s sweet.”

“Only to rub in the fact that I’m right.” This earns her another laugh.

“Really, though,” he says seriously, gesturing to his cheeseburger. “This is American culture right here. You’re not getting the full experience.”

“Clogged arteries are _not_ the authentic American experience.”

“They actually are,” says Maria Hill, sitting down beside Natasha. “Welcome to SHIELD. Officially.”

“Maria, please tell Natasha that plants are not food.”

“Let it go, Clint.”

“I actually came to talk to you,” Hill says to Natasha. “I’m in the market for a sparring partner and I heard you blew everyone out of the water with your field combat test. You think that arm could hold up in a fight?”

“Please. I’ve taken on ten men single handed with worse injuries than this.”

Hill smiles. “You’re on, Romanoff. See you later.”

“Look at you,” says Clint after Hill leaves. “You have friends.” Natasha looks down, studying her hands intently in an effort to avoid Clint’s gaze, but he doesn’t give up that easily. “Okay, what’s up?”

She pushes pieces of lettuce back and forth on her plate with her fork, mute.

“Natasha. Talk to me.”

“I’ve never had a friend before.” She’s still looking down at her hands. “There. Happy?”

He’s lost track of the number of times his heart can break for her. He knows pity is the last thing she wants from him and he tries not to let it show on his face but it’s hard because all he wants to do is protect her, give her someone to hold on to when her past catches up with her. He doesn’t know what to say. “Nat…”

“The other girls…it was always a competition. We were fighting for our lives. I did…I did things I’m not proud of to stay at the top, to stay alive.”

“Natasha you don’t have to tell me this.”

“Isn’t this what friends do? Talk to each other?”

“I don’t know,” Clint says honestly. “I’ve never really had a friend before either.”

“You have Coulson.”

“True. I have Coulson. He’s more of a mentor though. This,” he gestures at her, “this is all new to me.”

“We can figure it out together,” she says, so quietly he has to strain to hear her. Finally she looks up at him and he smiles at her, trying to use his eyes to tell her all the things he can’t say. _I’ll be your friend. I’m here for you. You can trust me. I don’t want to hurt you._ She smiles back and it’s like lighting a match in a dark room. The light is small and wavering, but it’s there.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Celebratory "I wrote my physics exam and probably didn't fail and I DESERVE a day off, damn it!" chapter.
> 
> Updates are still going to be sporadic because finals are still a thing. Also this one was very much of a struggle to write. Bear with me.

“Don’t go easy on me, Romanoff,” Maria says with a smile.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Natasha.

Hill launches herself into the air and Natasha sidesteps her easily, taking out her legs from underneath her with one kick. Hill doesn’t go down without a fight, however. She grabs Natasha’s ankle and pulls and then they’re both grappling on the ground until Natasha flips her over and pins her shoulders to the mat. “Okay, I take that back. Maybe go a little easy on me next time.” She’s laughing.

“You’re not bad,” Natasha says, getting up and helping the other woman to her feet.

“You’re better.”

“I was genetically enhanced as a child.”

Hill laughs again, tossing a bottle of water in Natasha’s direction. “Fair.”

“You ready to go again?”

“You just beat my ass into the ground, Romanoff. Give me five minutes.”

“Fine.”

Natasha’s leaning back against the wall waiting for Maria to be ready when the door to the training room opens and Clint walks in. He makes his way over to the mat when he sees her, smiling. She smiles back. “Here to get your ass kicked, Barton?”

“In your dreams, sweetheart.”

“Please fight him, Natasha,” Maria says from her seat on the bench.  “It’ll be good for his ego.”

Natasha tosses her water bottle to the side and walks to the middle of the mat, Clint following behind her. Without warning she turns and aims a kick at his head. He ducks and they fall into a rhythm. They’re fluid, seamless. It’s like they both know what move the other is going to make before it happens. He counters her every swing until she’s forced into the more creative moves in her arsenal. When she finally lands a kick on his ribs he retaliates with a punch to her stomach and then they’re on the ground and he overcomes her by sheer strength and pins her briefly, but she twists under him, flings him off of her, and then presses down firmly on his shoulders, pinning him to the mat. When Clint looks up at her she’s smiling in an exhilarated, adrenaline-fueled kind of way that leaves him breathless from something besides the fight.

It’s not until he’s getting back to his feet that Clint notices their audience. Everyone in the vicinity, it seems, has stopped whatever they were doing to watch the two of them fight. Judging by the looks he sees, they’re impressed. Slowly, everyone begins to drift back to wherever they were before and he turns back to Natasha. Strands of her fiery hair have escaped from her ponytail and are stuck to her face with sweat, and the sleeves of her shirt are pushed up. He catches sight of a bright red line across her wrist. “You’re hurt.”

Her eyes flick down to her arm and her smiles disappears as she hastily pushes her sleeves down, but not before Clint catches sight of the matching cuts on her other arm, too systematic to be an accident. “I’m fine.”

“Natasha-“

“Don’t. Just…don’t.”

“Okay.” He can see the relief in her eyes when he doesn’t push her. They stand there in uncomfortable silence for what feels like far too long before he says “You don’t have to tell me anything, Natasha. Not if you don’t want to. But I am a good listener.”

She nods slowly. “I’ll remember that.”

 ***

“We’re sending you on a mission.”

“Both of us?’ Natasha doesn’t understand. This isn’t how she operates and Fury knows that.

“It’s easy stuff. Some underground terrorist operation in Kandahar that got a hold of weapons prototypes they definitely shouldn’t have. You and Agent Barton are going to go in, get the intel, and get out.”

“It’s a test.” She levels Fury with her stare, as if daring him to tell her that she’s wrong.

He doesn’t. “You’ve given us no reason to doubt your loyalty so far, Agent Romanoff. However, I think you’d agree that we’d be fools to trust you until you prove you can be trusted. Yes, it’s a test.”

“Why Barton?” She knows. Of course she knows. He’ll be going in as her partner, with orders to shoot her the second she goes rogue, but she wants to hear Fury say it.

“Yeah, why me?” Clint asks.

“You’re the best man for the job,” Fury says simply.

Natasha hates him for his lies. She wants to hear her death sentence roll off his tongue. There’s venom in her eyes when she spits out the words. “He couldn’t even finish the job the first time.” She hates Clint, too. Hates him because she’s still alive, because he wouldn’t end her life when she asked him to, because he has no right to make that call for her. She turns on her heel and stalks out of Fury’s office.

She goes back to her room because it’s the only place people won’t stare at her, but it’s too small and she feels like she’s suffocating. Shaking slightly, Natasha slips Coulson’s knife out from under her pillow and draws another angry red line across her arm. This time the knife bites deeper and she has to bite her lip to keep herself from crying out in pain. _Everyone feels pain_. She remembers the words from her trainers in the Red Room. _It’s not the pain that makes you weak, it’s your reaction to the pain_. She tastes her own blood and there’s blood on the floor and blood on her hands and suddenly she’s back in Sao Paolo looking at the broken body of an eight year old girl and the blood is on her hands and she feels _nothing_ and her scream claws its way out of her throat like an animal.

“Natasha?” _No. Go away. You can’t see me like this._ The doorknob rattles. “God _dammit_ Natasha open the door!”

There’s a click and the door opens because _of course_ he doesn’t need a goddamn key to open a door. Clint takes in the scene in front of him; blood soaking into the carpet and Natasha with the knife in her hand and blood coating her arm like a red sleeve. “Go away,” she hisses, with a surprising amount of venom in her voice for someone who’s bleeding out on the floor.

“Jesus Christ, Tasha.” Clint kneels down beside her and pries the knife out of her hands.

“Don’t touch me,” she growls, swinging a fist at his face. He’s not expecting it and he doesn’t react quickly enough to avoid the punch. She hits him hard in the jaw and the second fist comes flying but he’s ready this time. He catches her wrists and pins them down, shifting his body weight on top of her legs so she can’t kick him. “Fight back,” she spits at him, trying to break his hold. “Fight back!”

“I’m not going to fight you, Tasha. Not like this.” The last thing he wants to do is restrain her, but he doesn’t have any other choice. Faster and more refined though her fighting technique may be, Clint is stronger than her and the only thing he can do is hold her down until the fight goes out of her and she stops thrashing and her body goes limp, and for a second he’s worried she’s lost too much blood until he sees that she’s still conscious.

Clint’s hands pinning her down feel too familiar, too much like what far too many men have done to her before, so she withdraws into herself because the only other option is to shatter completely. It’s a technique she perfected during her childhood, when they were tortured so that they could learn how not to break during an interrogation. Her trainers always commented on her near-immunity to pain, her ability to withdraw so far into herself that nothing can hurt her anymore. She’s perfected the art of feeling nothing, and so nothing is what she feels.

Clint’s on his knees beside her repeating the same words over and over. “I’m so sorry. Tasha, I’m so sorry.” Natasha hates him. Hates how helpless he’s making her feel. Hates that he knows enough about her past to know what being restrained like this reminds her of. Hates the way he’s apologizing for something that could never be his fault. Hates the way he uses the name Tasha, a name she once gave to someone who broke her beyond repair. Hates that he _cares_ , enough that he couldn’t just leave her alone. But mostly she hates herself for wanting to trust him like she’s never wanted to trust anyone before.

Slowly, he releases his hold on her. “Come on,” he says, when she makes no effort to move. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” He doesn’t want to touch her more than necessary, not when he’s already overstepped so many boundaries, so he leads the way to the bathroom and hopes that she’ll follow. She does, with a dazed look on her face, leaning against the doorway for support.

He’s conscious of her space as he washes the blood off her arm and covers the cut with gauze. He doesn’t want to be, _God_ he wants to put his arms around her and never let go because it physically hurts him to see her so broken. But he knows that no matter what emotional state she’s in she could snap the neck of anyone who touches her without consent so his examination of her arm is strictly medical and he doesn’t let his touch linger as he tapes the gauze to her wrist.

“Okay,” he says when he’s performed all the first aid that his limited skills allow. “Bed. Come on.” He doesn’t offer her help and she doesn’t ask for it, stumbling to her bed in a daze before collapsing far from gracefully on top. Clint pulls the blankets up over top of her, still being careful not to touch her. He’s about to leave when her small hand darts out from under the covers and grabs his wrist. He looks down in surprise.

Her whisper is small and weak and barely audible, all the things he doesn’t associate with Natasha. There’s no fire in her voice when she tells him “Stay.”

As if he could say no.

He stays. He stays and he watches her slip in and out of sleep and, occasionally, nightmares. He stays because he’s fiercely protective of this rough, violent girl who’s just barely a woman but has more blood on her hands than half of SHIELD. He stays because he’s pretty sure she could count on one hand the number of people she’s asked to stay with her before and he’s pretty sure she doesn’t even need hands to count the ones who actually did. He stays because she deserves something constant in her life and the least he can do is give it to her.

And when the nightmares take over completely and she’s thrashing in her sleep, hair slicked with sweat and limbs tangled in blankets, he says “Natasha” and she opens her eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am the actual worst. Mainly because I have not had any time to write because yesterday following Death By Finals I had a 14-hour pilgrimmage back to the motherland and now I'm working ridiculous shifts for the next every day of my life. (Happy retail Christmas, everyone!) (Fuck everything.) I'm sitting here drinking black coffee straight out of the pot if that says anything about my current levels of motivation.
> 
> But I got my butt in gear enough to write this chapter so I could meet my self-imposed deadline.
> 
> As always, your comments are greatly appreciated. It really does keep me motivated when I hear what you guys have to say. (Also you guys are soooooo sweet and I'd like to take this opportunity to send you all my love through the internet. <333)

She jolts awake at the sound of his voice. For a second she forgets where she is and why he’s here and a wave of panic overcomes her and she thrashes blindly, trying to free herself from the blankets that have her imprisoned. “Hey,” he says, gently. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.” And then it all comes flooding back. The knife and the blood and Clint holding her down to stop her from hurting herself and Clint bandaging her arm and _Clint_ staying beside her through her nightmares just because she asked him to.

It’s the first time she hasn’t felt alone. It’s unsettling, in a way, the idea that she isn’t alone. She’s a creature of solitude, she has been for years. Now Clint’s sitting beside her staring at her like he wants to break through all the methodically engineered walls around her heart and she wants _so badly_ to believe that he’s not like the others but she can’t shake the feeling that there’s something that he wants from her and someday he’s going to come and claim it. It hurts to know that she owes him so much, when she feels like she has nothing left to give.

“Tasha,” his voice is soft and gentle as the name she hates tumbles from his lips.

She feels raw and exposed. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why?”

“It reminds me of things I don’t want to remember.” She feels as if she’s dug a piece of her soul out with a knife and handed it to him. Her wounds are wide and gaping, her defenses crumbling. She’s hanging off the precipice of self-destruction and he’s holding out a hand that she’s not sure she’s willing to take.

“Sometimes you have to remember.” There’s no pity in his eyes. Understanding, but not pity. She hates him a little less because of it. “Sometimes you need to remember so that you can forget.”

“And sometimes forgetting for a while makes it easier to remember later. I don’t want to remember yet.”

“Do you want to live?” The question escapes him before he can stop himself.

She looks down, picking at a loose thread in the blanket. “I don’t know. I thought I did, but…I don’t know.”

Clint takes a deep breath and reaches out cautiously, brushing his fingers over the bandage on her arm, so lightly that she’s not sure if she’s imagining it. “Natasha. Why do you do this?”

She twists the thread around her finger, still avoiding his gaze. “To feel something. All I ever feel is numb and empty. That’s all we were ever taught to feel. But it scares me. The pain reminds me that I’m still alive. That I’m still capable of feeling.”

“Natasha.” She finally looks up, and the intensity in his eyes is real and deep and terrifying. “Can you promise me something?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not going to make you promise to stop. But the next time you’re about to take a knife to your own skin, I want you to come and find me.”

“Are you going to try to talk me out of it?”

“No.” He runs a hand through his hair. “No. But I want to show you that you don’t have to hurt yourself in order to feel something.”

She looks down again. “Okay.”

 ***

They ship out to Afghanistan three days later. She’s silent beside him on the plane, but they’ve already gone over their mission objectives so many times that it doesn’t matter. It’s easy stuff, just like Fury said. Get in, get the intel, get out. No covers, no collateral damage. There’s another team going in after them to take care of that part. For Clint and Natasha, this isn’t a real mission. It’s a test.

Of course it wouldn’t be that simple. Of course not.

“What did Fury tell you?” Natasha asks as they’re staking out the building from a roof across the street. “You’re supposed to shoot me the second I go rogue? That why you’re the best man for the job?” It looks like a regular office building from the outside, the last type of place anyone would be manufacturing nuclear weapons, but there’s a whole underground level that nobody knows about. Nobody except SHIELD, that is. It’s late at night and the thermos full of coffee is long gone and talking is the only way for them to distract themselves from how freezing cold and miserable they are.

“No. I’m the best man for the job because I’m the only one who’s going to have your back without holding a gun to it.”

“You trust me.” It isn’t a question.

“Does that scare you?”

“You shouldn’t trust me.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not a good person, Barton.” She crosses the roof and sits across from him on the ledge, legs pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around her knees. She looks small and vulnerable like this, staring off the roof like she wants to jump, like she doesn’t know if she’ll fall or fly but she doesn’t care because the whole point is the thrill of not knowing. His heart twists as he hears her spout out the lies that she’s been fed her whole life. She’s fierce and courageous and the world has been so cruel to her and they’ve taught her that _she’s_ the monster and he doesn’t know how to explain to her that she could never be more wrong.

So all he says is “People can change.” She nods like she understands, but he knows it’s not that simple in her head. “Tell me what you’re feeling.” It’s a new game they play, ever since the incident with the knife. He’s been helping her break down the walls around her carefully guarded heart, one piece at a time. He knows that letting him in is hard for her, but she’s trying.

“I don’t know,” she says haltingly. “Confused, I think. I don’t know who to be. If I’m not the monster they told me I am then who am I?”

“Be Natasha.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

He stares at her for a moment, silent, before he replies. “Only you can figure that out.”

She opens her mouth and she’s about to speak when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Clint sees two of the guards in front of the building they’re staking out look up and point to the roof where he and Natasha are currently hidden. But they’re _hidden_. How could they know? He doesn’t have time to question it. “Get down!” he hisses at Natasha, the second before the first gunshot goes off. She doesn’t do as he says. Instead, she kicks his legs out from underneath him so that he falls to the ground with her on top of him, shielding him from the gunfire just like that night in Warsaw that feels like so long ago.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” He can feel her breath on his face when she whispers.

“You’re telling me.”

She jerks her chin towards the back corner of the roof. “Emergency ladder. Over there. We get to the ground and then call SHIELD for evac.”

“What if they’re waiting for us on the ground?”

“Then at least it’s an even playing field?”

“I like the way you think, Romanoff.”

She stills, listening for more gunfire, but the night is eerily silent. He watches her and for the first time he’s aware of their proximity. Her body is pressed up against his and her face is inches from his and she, as a rule, does not get this close to people. His throat tightens as he realizes that she broke her own rule to prevent him from getting shot.

“Come on,” she says, rolling off of him and running silently towards the fire escape. He doesn’t even think twice before he follows.

Her feet have barely touched the ground before men come at her from both sides. She spins gracefully, kicking one in the head and the other in the stomach. She grabs their discarded guns from the ground and turns to look at Clint who’s still making his way down the fire escape. “Hurry up, Barton. We haven’t got all night.” She tosses him a gun as soon as he reaches the ground and they take off, keeping to the shadows to avoid being seen as they weave their way through buildings towards the outskirts of the city.

Clint radios in for an extraction once it’s clear that they’re not being pursued anymore and they both slump to the ground, leaning up against the brick wall of the building behind them, breathing heavily from the escape. Clint has a million questions he wants to ask her but they’re all going to have to wait, so he sits there in a silence that Natasha doesn’t seem anxious to break.

When the SHIELD van shows up, they climb into the backseat together to find Coulson waiting for them with a smile on his face. “Could have been worse,” he says.

“Natasha,” Clint says. He doesn’t waste any time because he needs to know. “You covered me back there. Why?”

She shrugs. “You’re my partner. And also the person at SHIELD I hate the least. I’d appreciate it if you stayed alive.”

Coulson laughs. “Looks like we’re stuck with you for good, Agent Romanoff. There’s no way Fury’s going to pull you out of the field after that mission.”

“Why?” Natasha’s confused. “We completely blew it. We had _one job_ and we couldn’t even get it done.” She glares at Clint out of the corner of her eye. “Not that I’m surprised actually, considering Barton’s track record.”

Coulson shakes his head. “It’s not the mission. People blow missions all the time. You took care of your own out there. That’s what SHIELD’s about, Natasha, first and foremost.”

 ***

Fury, it seems, is on the same page as Coulson. “You blew it,” he tells them, as they’re both sitting behind his desk the next afternoon. “You completely blew it. But if I had any doubts about your loyalty to SHIELD, Agent Romanoff, I don’t anymore.” He smiles at Natasha the way she thinks a father would, if she was allowed to have that sort of thing.

“He likes you,” Clint tells her as they leave debriefing together. They’re technically on leave, since they haven’t been assigned anything new and they don’t really need to be training, so they’re wandering the halls of base aimlessly.

“You think?”

“I do. Coffee?”

“Please.”

It’s mid-November and a light dusting of snow begins to fall as they walk back to Clint’s coffee shop. Natasha can’t help but see it as his because it’s so _him_ in every way possible. The bell above the door tinkles softly when they enter, and Clint points at a table. “Sit,” he orders. “I’ll be back.”

She barely has time to protest before he leaves, returning two minutes later with two cups and setting one in front of her. Natasha narrows her eyes at the drink in front of her. “What is this?”

“Just try it.”

She takes a small, experimental sip of the drink, eyes widening as she tastes it. “Oh, this is _good_. What is it?”

“Peppermint mocha. And you’re officially never allowed to make fun of the way I drink my coffee again.”

“I don’t remember making that deal.”

“Tough.” He grins at her across the table and she offers him a smile in return. It’s small and unsure and shy and excited all at once and he falls a little bit in love with her in that moment, although he’d never admit it to himself.

Neither of them wants to go back to base so they stay until the coffee shop closes and the owner kicks them out, and then they wander through the park as the snow begins to fall in earnest. Natasha walks purposefully through the deepest snow drifts and when she turns to look at Clint with her cheeks flushed and snowflakes in her hair, there’s a spark of childlike wonder in her eyes and she looks truly alive for the first time since he met her. “Why are you so excited about the snow?” he asks casually, as if the spark in her eyes isn’t his new favourite sight. “Didn’t you see enough of this in Russia?”

“It’s like you said before, about the coffee,” she replies, catching a snowflake on her palm. “I never knew I was allowed to enjoy it.” The nonchalance with which she talks about her tortured childhood is like a dagger twisting into his heart.

“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s go home.”

“Home,” she echoes. And then “Wrong word, Barton. People like us don’t get a home.”

Impulsively, he reaches down and takes her hand. She lets him lead her back to base through the dark, snow-muffled streets. They walk hand-in-hand down the empty hallways until they reach her room. They stop in front of the door, but Clint doesn’t let go of her hand. Natasha doesn’t want him to. It’s been too long since someone touched her without trying to take advantage of her. She stares at her feet trying to figure out what she’s feeling, but this is a feeling she can’t identify. “Nat,” he begins, and suddenly she’s terrified of what he might say.

“Goodnight, Clint.” She turns towards her door, avoiding his eyes.

“Goodnight, Natasha.” It’s not until her door has closed behind her and he’s standing in the hallway alone that Clint realizes what’s different; she called him by his first name.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written under the influence of alcohol.

_“Control the pain, Natalia,” he tells her. She’s tied to a chair and he’s pressing a brand against her skin, covering her stomach with burns. “Be stronger than the pain, or the pain will consume you.” She learns to compartmentalize it in her brain. She shoves the pain into a corner where it can’t get out and her mind is full of screams that never make it to her lips, but she’s not controlling the pain. The pain in controlling her._

_Later, after the torture that they call training, he comes to find her in her quarters. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he murmurs, pressing kisses to the burns on her skin. “It will make you stronger.” He’s gone in the morning. Every time. “Why do you leave?” she asks him one day. “To teach you a lesson,” he replies. “To teach you not to get attached, because you will never have anything to keep in this world.” She doesn’t understand. “Do you not love me?” she asks. “Love is for children,” he replies. “And you are not a child.”_

Natasha wakes with tears in her eyes, gasping for air. Instinctively, she reaches her hand under her pillow to grab the knife. Her heartbeat slows as she grasps the handle. This is something she can understand. She raises the blade to her wrist and feels the cold kiss of steel. She’s about to press down when Clint’s words echo in the back of her mind. “ _The next time you’re about to take a knife to your own skin, I want you to come and find me.”_  One hand clutching the knife like a lifeline, she gets out of bed and walks down the hall until she reaches Clint’s door.

Clint’s bleary-eyed and confused when he opens the door. “Tash, it’s three in the morning. What are you…oh.” His eyes zero in on the knife and then he’s giving her a once-over, checking for blood and signs of damage.

“Can I come in?” Her voice is a broken whisper.

He nods, and she follows into the room. “Sit,” he orders calmly, pointing to the bed. She ignores the bed, instead choosing to sit cross-legged on the ground, turning the knife over and over in her hands. He sits across from her, mimicking her position. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

She shakes her head, looking down at the knife in her hands.

“Okay,” he says calmly. “Okay. Just tell me what you need.”

“I need to not be alone.”

“You’re never alone.”

“I feel alone. All the time.”

“Natasha. Natasha, look at me.” Her eyes flick upwards and they’re shining with unshed tears and all he wants to do is put his arms around her but she’s so fragile in this moment that he feels like the slightest touch might cause her to shatter into a thousand pieces.  “I’m not going to leave you, okay? Not ever. I’m your friend and that’s not what friends do.”

“Everyone always says that and everyone always leaves.” _You will never have anything to keep in this world._

“How can I make you believe me?”

Silence. And then, “You stayed.”

“What?”

“Before. When I…when you…” she looks down again. “You were there, still. In the morning.”

“You asked me to stay,” he says simply, answering her unspoken question. “I’m not going to leave, Nat. Not unless you want me to.”

Natasha stares at the knife in her hands, running a finger over the edge of the blade and feeling like her life is balancing on the tip. No matter which direction she takes a step in, she’ll still fall. The only difference is that maybe on one side, just maybe, there’s someone to catch her. “I just don’t understand why,” she says quietly. “Why do you care? What is my life, to you?”

Clint sighs. “Can I tell you a story?”

She nods minutely.

“When I was five years old my parents died in a car crash. I barely remember them. My brother Barney and I ran off to join the circus. That’s where I learned how to shoot, made a name for myself. And then I fell in with the wrong people. Started killing for hire. I did things I’m not proud of, Nat. I killed a lot of innocent people. One day I couldn’t take it anymore. I was in a back alley in Omaha with a bullet in my calf waiting to bleed out and die when Coulson found me and pointed a gun at my head. And you know what my first thought was?”

She shakes her head no.

“It was ‘Thank God. I’m so tired.’ I wanted it to be over but I was too much of a coward to end it myself. And then Coulson told me something I’ll never forget. He said that there’s no bad people, just bad choices. He told me to come in, work for SHIELD, and start making good choices. It took me seven years, Nat, but I finally stopped keeping score of good deeds and bad deeds. I’m free. When I pointed my bow at you in Warsaw, I saw myself as I was seven years ago. I wanted you to be free too.”

Natasha pulls her legs up to her chest as if she can draw into herself and disappear completely. Resting her chin on her knee she lets herself look at him, _really_ look at him, for the first time. She sees the remains of the mile-high walls he once built up around his heart, sees how he’s granting her permission to walk through the detritus and see him as the fragile, broken man he is beneath the mask he wears. But not damaged. Never damaged.

“Clint?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I stay here?” There’s a look in her eyes that says that she’s not sure if this is a question she’s allowed to be asking, if this is a boundary she’s overstepped.

He nods. “Do you think you can sleep?”

“I’m scared of what I’ll see when I close my eyes.”

“I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.” He stands and offers her his hand, giving her the choice, letting her be the one to reach out and take it. She does, and he tugs on her hand gently, leading her over to his bed. He pulls the blanket over top of her and he’s about to retreat to the chair in the corner of the room when her hand catches his.

“Stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Natasha.”

“No. I mean stay.” She rolls over to make room on the bed and now he understands. “Please.”

Slowly, as if he’s approaching a stray cat, he stretches out beside her on the bed, leaving as much space as he can between them. “Is this okay?”

She reaches out and he feels her small hand slip into his, their fingers interlacing. “Now it is.”

“Natasha-,” he begins, and he’s not sure what he wants to say, but it doesn’t matter because she’s already asleep.

For the first time since she came to SHIELD, she sleeps without nightmares.

 ***

Natasha’s alone in the bed when she wakes and for a second she thinks she was wrong about Clint. She closes her eyes and lets the hurt wash over her, hating him but mostly hating herself for believing that he could be different. And then she hears his voice from the chair in the corner.

“Happy birthday.” She glares at him. “It’s in your file, Tash.”

“Which you do not have permission to read.”

“Your birthday isn’t exactly confidential information.” She narrows her eyes. “We have the day off. Let’s celebrate.”

“No.”

“At least let me buy you dinner.”

“Are you asking me on a date, Barton?” Her tone is playful, but her eyes betray her.

“Dinner,” he says softly. “That’s all it has to be.”

She relaxes back into the mattress. “Okay.”

 ***

When Clint knocks on her door that evening, she’s wearing jeans and his old hoodie, the one from Warsaw. Her hair is falling in loose curls past her shoulders. She’s beautiful, but he’d never tell her that. He knows that her whole life, men have only wanted her for her body, and he wants to show her that he’s not like that. “Come on,” he says, twirling the car keys around his finger. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I hate surprises.”

“Trust me?” It’s a question. He’s giving her a choice, just like he always does. He’s giving her the option to say no. And that, more than anything, makes her want to say yes.

She’s silent in the car, but it’s a comfortable silence. Clint likes the fact that Natasha doesn’t feel the need to fill every pause with idle conversation. She fiddles with the radio, skipping over a few channels until she finds what she’s looking for. Her hands still on the dial and the sound of classical music fills the car. Clint thinks back to the months he spent chasing her through two continents; the glimpses of her dancing to Tchaikovsky in a hotel room at three in the morning. As if she knows what she’s thinking, she tells him “I like music that doesn’t need words to say what it means.” He takes this piece of her soul and tucks it away with the other glimpses of her that he’s gotten, hoping that one day the puzzle pieces will come together to make a picture.

Clint pulls into the parking lot of the restaurant, hoping it’s not too busy because he hadn’t had the foresight to call ahead and make a reservation. Natasha follows him mutely into the restaurant, and they sit down at a small, dimly lit table in the corner. Clint watches Natasha as she stares at her menu, forehead creased in a way that means confusion.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I love Thai,” she says, looking up at him. “Did you know?”

He wants to tell her that he had no idea, that he picked the Thai restaurant at random and it must have been a lucky guess, but he feels like he owes her the truth. “I tailed you through nine cities, Natasha. I picked things up.”

Her voice is small, quiet. “Tell me.”

“You drink peppermint tea before you go to bed. You sleep better when it’s raining. Sometimes you read books in different languages just because you can, but you never read in Russian. You love Tchaikovsky. And you’re never more at peace than when you’re dancing.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. He can see tears glinting in her eyes and he wonders if anyone’s ever paid attention to her in this way before. He wonders if anyone’s ever tried to get to know her, the _real_ her. He wonders if anyone has ever treated her like a human before. It kills him that the answer may be no.

 ***

She’s silent again on the drive back to base, but Clint doesn’t mind. He takes her hand again as they walk through the SHIELD hallways. It’s the one form of contact she’s allowed him so far, and he never wants to let go. “I have something for you,” he tells her when they reach his door. Natasha stands half in the doorway looking unsure as Clint retrieves the package from the top drawer of his dresser and hands it to her. “Happy birthday.” She looks at him, confused. “Birthday present,” he explains. “You didn’t do that in Russia?”

“Not where I was.” She unwraps it slowly, as if she’s not sure she’s allowed to. “The Hobbit,” she reads off of the cover.

“Written for children, loved by adults. Kind of like Harry Potter.”

She smiles shyly at him. “Thank you.” She stays there, standing halfway inside like she’s not sure where she’s supposed to be, like she wants to stay but doesn’t know how to ask. So he voices it for her.

“You can stay. If you want.” She tenses. “Not like that, Natasha. Just…stay.”

“Okay.” She steps into his apartment, closing the door behind her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is a bit shorter than usual but I wanted to post it before I headed out to my 8.5 hours of retail hell. I promise I'll give you guys a super long one next time. <3
> 
> Shoutout to all the wonderful people who are still sticking with me despite my sporadic updates and tendency to write under the influence of alcohol. As always, feel free to leave your thoughts because it really does keep me motivated.
> 
> Enjoy!

“St. Petersburg.”

“No.”

“Barton,” Fury warns.

“Absolutely not.”

“Agent Barton, with all due respect, this isn’t your call to make.”

“God _dammit_. Phil, back me up here. Please. This is a terrible idea.”

“I can handle it,” Natasha says coolly.

“I know you can,” Clint tells her. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

“I’m ready to go back.”

“No,” he says firmly. “No. You’re not. When you stop waking up screaming from nightmares every night, maybe then you’ll be ready to go back.” He’s right and she knows it. Her nightmares are full of unspeakable terrors. She lies awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, forcing her eyes to stay open so she can’t slip back into the dreams. Every night Clint asks her if she wants to talk about it. Every night she says no.

“I’m not the only one who has nightmares,” she says quietly.

“Let’s focus, please,” says Fury. “Natasha, do you feel that you are capable of going back to Russia in your current physical and mental state?”

“Yes.”

“Nat-“

“Stay out of this, Barton. Natasha, do you _want_ to go back to Russia?”

“Do I have a choice?”

It’s Coulson who answers her. “Of course you have a choice. We’re not going to make you do something you’re not comfortable with. Ever.”

When she meets Clint’s eyes her face is full of naked vulnerability. “I don’t want to go back to Russia. Not yet.”

“Okay.” Clint nods. “Okay. We’re not going.” If Fury and Coulson are surprised by her honesty, neither of them lets it show.

 ***

“I’m going to have to go back someday,” Natasha tells him as they leave Fury’s office.

“I know,” he acknowledges. “But it’s not time for you to face down your demons. Not yet.”

“How did you know?”

“I don’t know what happened to you in Russia. Nobody knows what happened to you in Russia because you won’t talk about it. If you can’t even talk about it, you’re not ready to go back there.”

She says nothing, and they walk to the shooting range in silence. They choose stalls next to each other and Clint pulls out his bow, running his hands over the familiar leather. It’s easy to lose track of everything when he’s shooting. He falls into a rhythm. _Point. Aim. Release._ He loses track of time because time doesn’t matter here, nothing matters but the thud of his arrows in the target and the systematic contraction and relaxation of his muscles as he pulls back and then releases the bowstring. He only stops when he realizes that he can no longer hear Natasha’s gunshots from beside him.

When he turns, he finds her leaning up against the wall, watching him with a curious expression on her face. “Teach me,” she says.

He lines the bow up with her shoulder and shows her how to hold it, shows her how to pull the string back so there’s just the right amount of tension. He teaches her how to inhale when she pulls back and exhale on the release. Her first shot is just wide of the bull’s-eye.

“Not bad for an amateur,” he says, grinning. She stares at her arrow embedded in the target and says nothing.

He stands there in silence for a while, watching her, waiting for her. He knows by now not to push her. When she’s ready, she’ll talk. It’s not long before she turns to him. “Coulson said I don’t ever have to do anything I’m not comfortable with.”

Clint nods, unsure of where she’s going with this.

“Was he being serious?”

“He wouldn’t lie to you any more than I would, Natasha.”

“I can just say no? Whenever I want?”

“Nat.”

“Clint.”

“Was that what they taught you in Russia? That you weren’t allowed to say no?”

Her silence is answer enough and it breaks his heart, the thought that she’s never been completely her own before. _No wonder you cut yourself, if that’s the only way you can find control_. There’s been no more incidents since that night she came and found him and for that he’s grateful, but she’s still fragile. She could still break at any instant, all the carefully built pieces of her new life could shatter like glass. She still knocks on his door at midnight when her nightmares wake her up and she can’t handle being alone with her demons anymore. He still holds her hand as she falls asleep and wakes her up when she slips back into her nightmares. They still don’t talk about it. She keeps up a façade and nobody else would ever suspect that anything is wrong; Clint would never suspect that anything is wrong either if it isn’t for those moments when it’s just the two of them and she gets tired of wearing her masks and she lets the façade slip to show how vulnerable she truly is underneath. They don’t talk about that either.

“It’s not that I wasn’t allowed,” she answers finally, eyes still glued to the arrow in the target. “We _couldn’t_. We were programmed. A serum that turned us into mindless killing machines with just enough sanity that we could see and understand what we’d done. It was like a drug. And the deprogramming, it felt like life and death at the same time.”

Before he can say anything, she turns on her heel and walks away and it almost looks like a victory but he can see the slump in her shoulders and he knows she’s not okay, knows that he can’t just let her walk away from him this time. So he goes after her.

He doesn’t bother knocking when he reaches her door, simply picking the lock and going in. For a covert organization, SHIELD doesn’t seem to prioritize security in their living quarters. Either that, or they just don’t give a shit because they figure that spies are going to find their way through locked doors no matter what, so they might as well make the breaking and entering as easy as possible. Either way, Clint picks the lock in a matter of seconds.

Natasha’s on her knees on the floor holding the knife. There’s no blood yet but she’s crying; huge, violent sobs that shake her entire body. She is an earthquake and right now, standing in the doorway, Clint is safe, but a step in either direction could cause him to tumble into the abyss. He moves forward.

“Natasha.” Clint kneels down in front of her so she can see him. “Natasha, hey. Hey. You don’t have to do this.”

“You don’t understand,” she chokes out through her tears.

“I’d understand if you told me.”

“I need to _feel_ , Clint. I need to feel something. Anything.”

“Feel this,” he says, and then he kisses her. It’s soft and gentle and slow, tender and heartbreaking and it’s everything Natasha hates but she finds herself loving it all the same. It lasts forever but at the same time it’s over too soon.

Clint wants her. _God_ , he wants every part of her, but he makes himself pull his hands away because if he doesn’t he’ll be just like all the others. Something clenches inside his chest when he pulls back and sees her sitting there looking lost, with tears still trickling slowly down her cheeks.

“Tash,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“

“Don’t,” she cuts him off. “Don’t apologize.”

When he says nothing, she lifts the hand with the knife in it and hands it to him, hilt first. He raises an eyebrow at her. A question. “Please,” she whispers. “I can’t keep this. Not today.” It’s the biggest gesture of trust he’s seen from her so far; not the fact that she lets herself fall asleep beside him, not the fact that she’ll let him see her with tears streaming down her face. No, it’s the fact that she trusts him enough to disarm herself in his presence. He doesn’t know what he’s done to earn this kind of trust, doesn’t deserve it, but she gives it all the same.

Slowly, she inches forward until her forehead comes to rest on his shoulder. He can still feel her shaking, still hear her crying quietly and all he wants to do is hold her but he doesn’t know if she’ll let him, so he just stays. He’s the rock in the midst of the storm and she rests on him because she’s been fighting the waves for too long and right now he’s the only thing keeping her head above the water.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here is your longer-than-last-time chapter. I had a lot of fun writing this one so hopefully you guys enjoy reading it! <3

They don’t talk about the kiss. Nothing changes between them, and they don’t talk about it. Clint wants to, desperately, but he can’t, not with Natasha acting like nothing ever happened between them. She’s so fragile already, _they’re_ so fragile, and to bring it up might be the blow that finally breaks the glass. Clint tries to convince himself that it doesn’t matter. She needed him and he was there and that’s all it was. And it almost works. Almost.

They’ve been partnered indefinitely. Fury seems to think they make a good team despite the botched mission in Afghanistan being the only mission they’ve been sent on together. Coulson’s handling them because, as Fury put it, “He’s the only man in this damn organization who’s enough of a masochist to take this on.”

It’s a cold, snowy day in December when they find themselves in Coulson’s office, being asked how they’d like to spend Christmas in Kazakhstan.

“Do we have a choice?” Clint asks.

“Abdhou Kalamar,” Coulson says, sliding a file across the desk. “Suspected of harbouring Taliban members.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “I take it we don’t have a choice.”

“Do I need to remind you what happened last time we were in the Stans?” Clint asks Coulson. “Because it was a royal fuck-up, in case you don’t remember.”

“Think of this as redemption,” says Coulson. “And don’t fuck up this time.”

“So are you going to tell us what the mission is?” Clint asks. “Seeing as we don’t have a choice?”

Coulson sighs. “As if you’d say no. It’s simple, in theory. We just need you to take him out.”

“Dinner and a movie?” Clint jokes.

Natasha rolls her eyes again. “So where is he?”

“Well,” says Coulson, pulling out a map of Kazakhstan that’s almost indecipherable due to the lines drawn in red marker. “That’s the catch.”

 ***

“Son of a bitch has twenty-seven safe houses in Kazakhstan _alone_.” Natasha’s sitting at Clint’s sorry excuse for a kitchen table, poring over one of the maps Coulson gave them. She glances up only when Clint places a bowl of something steaming next to her elbow. “What is this?”

“Stir fry. Eat.” He sits down across from her with his own bowl. “I don’t know why you’re insisting on going over this shit now. We’ll have more than enough time on the plane tomorrow.”

“I’m trying to make sure we don’t fuck this one up, Clint.”

“Why should you care?” he asks her around a mouthful of stir fry. “Coulson loves you. Fury loves you. Nobody’s going to give _you_ shit for fucking anything up.”

“Nobody’s going to give you shit for fucking everything up either if you would just do your damn job!”

“Okay, okay.” He flashes a grin at her from across the table. “Show me these safe houses.”

They’re up most of the night going over reports, memorizing maps, reading and rereading mission objectives until they can recite them with their eyes closed. Finally, at three in the morning when they can both barely keep their eyes open, Natasha closes the file. “We should get some sleep.”

“Stay here,” Clint says when she stands to leave. “You’re already packed. I’ll take the couch,” he adds when he sees the hesitation in her eyes. She’s too tired to protest, so she crawls into his bed.

It’s in the little things, such as the way she’ll fall asleep in front of him, that show him that she trusts him. She’d never say it, but he knows. It makes Clint’s heart hurt to see how small and vulnerable she appears in her sleep. He wants to slide into bed beside her and wrap his arms around her, but he can’t. He promised himself he’d never take advantage of her and he’s afraid that he’s already broken that promise and he’s not going to let himself blur any more lines. So he covers Natasha in a blanket, gently so he doesn’t wake her, and falls into an uneasy sleep on the couch.

Despite her exhaustion, Natasha wakes at exactly six in the morning, covered in a blanket she has no memory of retrieving. Her eyes begin to burn and she swipes at them furiously, angry that such a small gesture is making her so emotional. _Pull yourself together, Romanoff._ She rolls out of Clint’s bed and walks quietly over to where Clint is still fast asleep, mouth wide open and one arm dangling off the couch. “Clint.” She jabs him in the ribs, stifling a laugh when he twitches awake and glares at her through half-closed eyes. “Come on. We’ve got a plane to catch.”

“But Tash I don’t wanna go to Kazakhstan.” His voice is rough from sleep but there’s a trace of humour in it.

“Tough. Get up.”

“Damn it, woman.”

“Add that to the list of things you’re not allowed to call me.”

“Noted,” he says, slinging his duffel over his shoulder. “You ready?” She nods, and they head out the door.

Coulson’s waiting for them at the hangar to ride the jet with them to Kazakhstan. Clint and Natasha are going in alone, but SHIELD’s going to be waiting not too far off with backup, just in case. As much as Clint hates having an extraction plan, he has to admit he was grateful for the backup in Afghanistan, so he doesn’t say anything as Coulson outlines the emergency extraction plan in excruciating detail and makes him and Natasha repeat it back until he’s confident that they’re not going to fuck everything up.

Natasha falls asleep shortly after and Clint sits there watching her until Coulson’s voice jolts him out of his reverie. “You’ve been looking out for her.”

“Ever since I brought her in. Someone’s got to.”

“You really care about her,” Coulson remarks.

“Yeah,” Clint says softly, eyes flicking over to his sleeping partner. “Yeah, I do.”  
“Are you two…?” Coulson trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish the question. Clint already knows what he thinks. It’s the same thing everyone at SHIELD has been saying for the past couple weeks. He’s heard the whispers. He thinks he wouldn’t mind the whispers so much if they were actually true.

Sighing heavily, he looks down at his hands. It’s a habit he’s picked up from Natasha, who looks away as if she can avoid difficult questions by ignoring them. “No.”

“Clint-“

“I’m just trying to be what she needs, Phil. And what she needs right now is a friend.”

Phil smiles. “I wish you from seven years ago in Omaha could see you now.”

Silence. And then finally, “I stopped keeping score, Phil. Seven goddamn years of feeling like a guilty piece of shit and I finally stopped keeping score.”

Coulson nods, understanding. “Have you told her?”

“No.”

“Tell her, Clint.”

“Phil-“

“If you don’t do it I’ll tell her myself.” It’s an empty threat and they both know it, because this is Clint’s secret to share.

Clint glances back over at Natasha’s sleeping form, his eyes soft. “I’m just waiting for the right time.”

“Don’t wait too long.”

 ***

“Merry fucking Christmas, Nat.” They’ve been on stakeout for hours now. Normally, Clint can handle stakeout. It’s the way he works; watch from a distance and wait, hours and days and sometimes weeks. But this is different. This is the mountains of Kazakhstan in the middle of the winter with snowdrifts piled as high as their heads and cold that threatens to bite off their extremities. This is the sixth safe house they’ve staked out in this way after their mark hasn’t shown up at the first five.

Natasha’s shivering despite her double layer of jackets. “I want vacation after this. Paid vacation. Somewhere warm. I never want to see another fucking snowflake again.”

“You’re _Russian_. This is your domain.”

“That doesn’t mean I like it. It just means I’m used to it.”

“You don’t like the cold because it reminds you of Russia.”

“I never said that.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

They fall back into silence as the wind begins to pick up. Natasha wraps her arms tighter around herself, trying to hold in what heat she can. She’s about to ask Clint how long they have until they can give up on this safe house too, when she spots movement out of the corner of her eye.

“Clint,” she whispers.

“Yeah?” he whispers back.

“That our guy?”

“Looks like him, but I’ve got to be sure.” It is, in fact, their guy. Clint recognizes his face the second he steps into the light because they’ve been studying pictures of him for the past week in between their stakeouts at the five previous safe houses. He lets out a breath, nocking an arrow. “Yeah, it’s him. Get ready to move.”

“Take the shot, Hawkeye.”

Despite the wind that’s continuing to pick up, Clint’s arrow flies true, embedding itself in its mark. The second the body falls they turn to leave, not bothering to check that their mark is actually dead. Clint never misses.

The wind is cold and strong now, biting at their exposed skin and flinging snow into their faces. It’s amazing, Natasha thinks, how quickly the weather can change in the mountains. They’re all but blind as they stumble around in the snow, wind blowing at them from all sides. The plan had been for them to walk to the evac point and then radio SHIELD, but they’re not going to make it there. Not in weather like this.

“I say we find whatever shelter we can and wait for this to blow over!” Clint yells at Natasha over the howling of the wind. She nods back and they push forward.

The shelter they finally find is a broken down old shack half-buried under a snow drift that looks like it hasn’t seen life in ages. They stumble through the door, half-numb and shaking from the cold. It isn’t much warmer inside, but at least they’re out of the wind. Clint radios SHIELD and gives them as detailed a description of their location as he can, and then it’s a waiting game.

Natasha shivers and pulls her jacket closer around her. Her teeth are chattering and the tips of her fingers are tinged blue and if evac isn’t able to come soon Clint’s worried she’s going to die of hypothermia in middle-of-fucking-nowhere Kazakhstan.

“Come here,” he says, opening his arms. She eyes him warily as she pulls the jacket even tighter around herself as if doing so will hide the fact that she’s practically convulsing from the cold.

“Nat,” he says sternly when he sees the hesitation in her eyes. “We’ll be warmer if we share body heat.”

Moving slower than a wounded animal she takes a few uncertain steps towards him. This is new territory for them. They rarely touch and they _certainly_ don’t share body heat to stay warm in the middle of a blizzard.

He watches her, arms still open, but he doesn’t move. She’s tense as a coiled spring when she hesitantly presses herself against him but his arms around her are warm and strong. Her whole body is shaking from the cold and he pulls her tighter. She buries her face in his coat and tries to focus on taking even breaths and convincing herself that she’s safe because all her instincts are telling her to lash out right now even though this is Clint and they’re partners and she wants to believe that he’ll never hurt her.

“You okay, Tash?” His voice is soft. She nods into his jacket, not trusting herself to speak yet, hoping he’ll understand. She thinks he does, because he sinks to the ground with his arms still around her, pulling her down beside him and flinging his jacket over the both of them like a makeshift blanket.

“I was nine years old the first time I killed a man.”

“Nat, you don’t have to-“

“No. I need you to understand. It wasn’t a mission, it wasn’t a contracted murder. It was one of the trainers in the Red Room. He came to my bed late at night and he tried to touch me, tried to take my clothes off. He said it was an honour. I took the knife from under my pillow and I slit his throat. The next morning they found him dead and five of the trainers tied me up so they could finish what he started.”

“Natasha.”

“My whole life men have always wanted something from me.”

Clint doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what he _can_ say. But he knows what she’s trying to tell him. He hears all the things that are left unspoken. _You’re the only one who’s never wanted anything from me. Why do you give and ask for nothing in return?_ Every man in her life has hurt her and yet she still lets herself be vulnerable with him. It’s her way of saying ‘I trust you’ because she’d never actually use those words. He holds her just a little bit tighter to show her that he understands. She doesn’t object.

Finally, slowly, on the floor of a broken down shack in Kazakhstan, she begins to open up. One by one, the confessions trickle from her lips. She tells him about the Red Room and the torture and _love is for children_ and all the men who have had their way with her because she was taught that she wasn’t allowed to be in control of her own body. Piece by piece, she tears down her walls until her heart is naked and bare in front of him and for the first time he sees her, _really_ sees her for who she is. And he loves her for it.

“Thank you,” he whispers into her hair.

“For what?”

“Trusting me even though you have every reason not to.”

“Thank _you_.”

“For what?”

“Letting me be myself when I’m with you.”

He brushes his lips lightly across the top of her head. “Always, Tash. Always.”

After a while she stops shaking and Clint isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It could mean that she’s finally warmed up, but it’s more likely that her body has given up on trying to keep her warm. Clint’s exhausted beyond belief, but he knows that falling asleep in cold like this might mean never waking up. “Nat,” he murmurs, tightening his hold on her.

“Mmmm?”

“You can’t sleep, Nat. You have to stay awake.”

“Can’t.”

“Yes you can. You need to.”

“So tired.”

“I know. I know, Nat. I’m tired too. But I need you to stay awake, okay? I need you to keep talking to me.” He looks down at her face. “Hey. Eyes open. Listen to me. SHIELD’s going to get us out of here soon and take us home.”

“Home,” she murmurs sleepily. “Don’t have one.”

It’s another dagger to his hole-riddled heart. _Yes you do_ , he wants to tell her. _This is home. I’ll be your home now._ “It’s okay,” he says out loud. “Home is overrated, anyways.”

Natasha falls silent and he thinks she falls asleep, and Clint’s eyelids are getting heavier by the minute but he can’t let himself fall asleep he _can’t_ , so he keeps talking to her about anything and everything. He tells her stories about his childhood and his time before SHIELD and missions he’s been on with Phil and he prays to whatever deities are out there that evac will come soon because he doesn’t think he can keep this up for much longer.

That’s how Coulson finds them four and a half hours later, tangled together on the floor of the shack, Clint whispering stories into Natasha’s ear in an effort to keep them both awake.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, these shorter-than-usual chapters seem to be becoming a bit of a norm, but I really wanted to get this up for you guys today. Consider it a Christmas present if you celebrate Christmas. If not, happy December 25th and I still wish you the best day ever. <3
> 
> Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drink hot chocolate and play in the snow like the 5-year-old I am at heart.

Coulson is all business the second he processes the situation. “Let’s get you guys out of here.”

“Nat.” No answer. Clint’s voice takes on a more urgent tone as he realizes that she isn’t responding. “Nat! Shit, Coulson, we gotta get her warm.”

Coulson lifts Natasha’s small form easily, and Clint stumbles to his own feet. The wind is still blowing strong outside and the force of it almost knocks him over as they make their way over to the helicopter that SHIELD somehow managed to land in the middle of a blizzard.

“Let’s move,” Coulson says as soon as they’re all on board. “The faster we get to the jet, the faster we can get medical to look at Romanoff. Hypothermia?” The question is directed at Clint and he nods. “Keep her warm, keep her breathing. That’s all we can do for her right now.”

Clint nods, stripping Natasha of her double layer of jackets and covering her with a shock blanket from the first aid kit Coulson hands him. Her pulse is slow, but it’s steady. He pulls her into a semi-seated position so that she’s leaning against his chest and he can wrap his arms around her, offering as much body heat as he can in an effort to warm her up. Her head rests on his shoulder and he can feel her shallow breaths against his neck.

“I know this probably isn’t the best time to ask,” Coulson says, “but did you get him? Kalamar?”

It’s the last thing he’s thinking about, with the storm and the cold and Natasha shaking in his arms all competing for space at the forefront of his mind, but Clint forces himself to think back to his arrow piercing their mark’s heart. “Dead.”

“She’ll be okay, Clint,” Coulson says gently. “She’s tough.”

As if on cue, Natasha stirs, inhaling deeply and turning her head, pressing her face into Clint’s shoulder. His arms tighten around her instinctively, protectively. “Nat?”

“Mmmm.”

He laughs softly. “You always did have a way with words.”

“Shut up,” she croaks out, hands pushing weakly against his chest in an effort to sit up.

“Hey.” Clint’s voice is gentle. “Don’t move. I’ve got you, you’re okay. Are you still cold?”

He can feel her nod into his shoulder and the small movement takes his mind back to the shack again, with Natasha in his arms, shaking from the cold and opening all her old wounds in front of him, trusting him to put her back together as she tears herself apart and leaves her heart unguarded.

He pulls her closer. “I’m here. I’ll keep you warm.” She relaxes back into him and he presses his lips to her temple briefly. Coulson raises an eyebrow at him but Clint shakes his head almost imperceptibly. _Not now_. Coulson seems to understand the message because he lets it slide. For now, at least, and Clint can’t bring himself to care about what might come later.

The helicopter lands next to the SHIELD jet that’s meant to take them back to base and Clint stands with Natasha in his arms. “I can walk,” she tells him, eyes half closed.

“I know.”

“Hate you.”

“You can kick my ass later, sweetheart.”

“Okay.”

Clint laughs again as he carries her onto the jet.

“Medical,” Coulson says the second they’re on board.

“No,” Natasha protests. “M’fine. Just tired.” Clint sets her down and then sits down beside her. She’s still leaning on him like she can’t physically handle the effort it takes to keep herself upright, so he wraps an arm around her waist and lets her drift back asleep with her head on his shoulder.

Coulson eyes them curiously. “What happened out there, Clint?”

Clint shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. We’re okay.”

Natasha’s more alert when she wakes again, three hours into the flight. She lifts her head off of Clint’s shoulder to take in her surroundings – standard jet interior and Coulson’s recently vacated seat – before craning her neck to look up at him. “Where are we?”

He wonders how much she remembers. He wants to know if she remembers everything she told him about her past, the pieces of her shattered heart that she’s given him. He wants to know if she remembers everything he told her in his desperate attempt to keep her awake. He wonders if it would be easier if she forgot. _Where are we?_ “Home,” he tells her. She nods and drops her head back to his shoulder, eyes still open. “Still tired?” he asks. She shakes her head.

“Excellent,” Coulson says, sliding back into his seat. “Debrief time.”

“On second thought, I’m exhausted,” Natasha deadpans. “Almost freezing to death really takes a lot out of you.”

Coulson smiles. “I’ll give you a day off.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

Natasha shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll take it.”

“Hey,” Clint protests. “How many days do I get off?”

“None,” comes Natasha’s smug reply. “ _You_ didn’t almost die today.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t care.” She doesn’t say anything and that in itself says enough. “Nat… _do_ you care?”

She lifts her head off of his shoulder, leaning back in her own seat. For the first time since the shack they’re not touching, and Clint feels her absence like a knife in his side. She pulls the blanket tighter around herself to try to hide the fact that she misses his body heat. “I should care,” she says, looking down at her lap.

“But you don’t.”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do!” Clint says, exasperated. “Nat, I-“

 _I stopped keeping score._ The words are on the tip of his tongue but he can’t say them. With them comes a story and it’s the only one he isn’t willing to tell. Anything else he’ll give her in a heartbeat, but not this. Not yet.

Clint looks up and meets Coulson’s eyes and he knows that their handler knows what he almost said. He knows what Coulson thinks. Natasha deserves to know this piece of him that already belongs to her and he wants so desperately to tell her but not now, not when she’s angry and confused and shrinking away from him with something resembling distrust in her eyes. So instead he stretches out a hand to her, a question, and she stares at it, unmoving, for so long that Clint’s about to pull away and pretend nothing ever happened. But then her hand, still cold and so impossibly small, reaches out and their fingers intertwine and it’s his answer.

“Thank you,” she whispers. He doesn’t need to ask what for.

 ***

They don’t end up debriefing. Coulson can see that they’re both on edge, so they spend the rest of the flight in silence and manage to escape when they get back to base with only a “My office. 10am tomorrow.”

Natasha doesn’t protest as Clint takes her hand and leads her to his room. She curls up on one end of the couch, back to the armrest and feet tucked underneath her, looking distant and untouchable. He sits beside her, giving her distance. “Merry Christmas,” he says softly.

She looks up at him. “What day is it? Is it still Christmas?”

Clint shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. Christmas is for family and we don’t get that.”

“We can be each other’s family,” she says, and there’s openness and honesty in her eyes and for once she doesn’t look away.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We don’t have family. So we’ll make our own.” After all, who said they had to sit back and take the hand the world dealt them?

It’s almost as if Clint knows her thoughts. “People like us don’t get to have that.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “But we can still take it.” This time it’s Natasha that reaches for him. Her small hand closes around his and she pulls him in until he’s close enough to put his arms around her. Clint presses his lips to the top of her head and she presses her face into his shoulder, into the space that feels like it was made for her, and he never wants to let go. A hundred words rush through his head. _Family. Home. I stopped keeping score._ He doesn’t say a single one of them because as Natasha once told him, the best music doesn’t need words to tell a story.

 ***

Natasha wakes the next morning wedged between Clint’s chest and the back of the couch, forehead pressed into his shoulder. Something about waking up feels off, almost feels wrong, until she realizes that she slept through the night for the first time she can remember. A dozen emotions course through her like a river and it’s all she can do to hold them back. Relief that she escaped the nightmares, if only for one night. Uneasiness because she shouldn’t feel so comfortable and safe here, yet she does. Fear because she’s done the very thing she promised herself she’d never do again in allowing herself to get close to someone. And there’s one more she doesn’t want to name because the truth of it would terrify her.

Clint feels Natasha stir beside him and opens his own eyes. There’s barely any space between them. “Hey,” he says quietly.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. Sleep okay?”

“Surprisingly, yeah.”

“You were exhausted.” The memory of her asleep in his arms on the helicopter surfaces and suddenly he has to know what she remembers. “Nat,” he begins, unsure of where to start.

“Clint.”

“Do you remember anything from Kazakhstan?”

She nods slowly, brow furrowing like she’s deep in thought. “It was cold. And there was a storm. We found an old shack in the middle of the mountains to wait out the storm and I was freezing and you kept me warm.” Her eyes soften. “You kept talking to keep me awake.”

“It didn’t work.”

“It was enough.”

But there’s more and he has to know. “Do you remember telling me about your past? About the Red Room and Russia and the KGB?”

Her face is a mask, unreadable. “Every word.”

Relief rushes through him. He doesn’t think he could have handled it if he had to hold on to those pieces of her that she didn’t even remember giving him.

“It’s like the knife.” Her voice is impossibly small. “I need you to hold onto it for a while until I can take it back.”

“You take as long as you need,” he says softly.

They drift back into silence but it’s not uncomfortable, it’s peaceful. They don’t need words. Maybe they’ve never needed words, Clint thinks.

“We should get up,” Natasha says after a while.

Clint buries his face in the couch. “No.”

“We’re due for debrief in half an hour and we can’t go looking like this.”

“Why not?”

Natasha sighs. “Get up, Clint.”

 ***

“I really hope you were kidding about those days off.” Coulson says, surveying them from behind his desk.

“Damn it, Phil,” Clint protests. “One day. Just give us _one day_.”

“I really need you guys on this one. After that you can have all the vacation time you want.”

“Wait,” says Natasha. “Hold up. Say that again so I can record it and play it back when you conveniently forget.”

Coulson sighs. “Fury requested you two specifically for this mission.”

“What is it?” Natasha inquires, ever the professional.

“An underground organization that may have ties to HYRDA.”

“But HYDRA’s gone,” says Clint.

Coulson shakes his head. “Cut off one head and two more will grow back. HYRDA was never gone. They were just hiding, lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to resurface.”

Natasha nods. “So where are we going?”

“Budapest.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I promised something longer? Or maybe I didn't but either way, here it is! I started writing and then I couldn't stop and then this happened. Shoutout to my anatomy prof for the lesson on how to properly treat a knife wound (because what's fiction without scientific accuracy, am I right?). (This is the same prof that taught me seven different ways to kill a man with my bare hands and played viral videos as "commercial breaks" during lectures.)
> 
> Also, just for fun, I made a playlist of the music that I've been listening to while writing this, and that can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/daughter-of-rohan/love-is-for-children?utm_medium=trax_embed) if you're interested!
> 
>  
> 
> As always, your feedback is a writer's cocaine. (But really, feel free to talk to me anytime. I don't bite.)

They spend the week before they ship out to Budapest training, reviewing mission objectives, and learning everything there is to know about HYDRA. The mission is simple in theory; infiltration and information. It’s made more difficult by the fact that they aren’t supposed to be seen, and made almost impossible because Fury wants them to get in and out without collateral damage. The whole point of this, he told them in briefing, is to get the information SHIELD needs without alerting HYDRA to the fact that SHIELD has it. That is, if it even is HYDRA in the first place. If there’s one thing they’ve both learned in their line of work, it’s never to make assumptions.

 ***

It’s the day before they have to be on board the jet at some ungodly hour of the morning and they’ve just finished sparring. Or rather, Natasha’s just finished beating Clint’s ass into the ground because it’s one of those days. “Want to come over tonight?” he asks her, pulling his hoodie back on. “I’m cooking.”

She shrugs her left shoulder. “Sure.”

They’ve fallen into a kind of camaraderie after Kazakhstan. They don’t need to talk about what happened there, because everything’s been said. But they’re more at ease around each other now, more comfortable. Clint still never touches her without her permission but sometimes, when her nightmares are at their worst, she’ll come into his room and crawl into the circle of his arms. He doesn’t say anything when this happens, he just holds her because he knows that she just needs him to be there, just needs to know that she’s not alone.

Clint trusts her implicitly. Natasha trusts him too, although she’d never admit it, even to herself. It doesn’t matter because he knows. And he knows what it costs her to trust him and he promises himself time and time again that he’ll never do anything to hurt her.

He’s already started cooking when Natasha enters quietly, hair still damp from her shower and smelling like the shampoo she uses; vanilla and coconut and something else he can’t quite place. She sits on the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest, and doesn’t even try to hide the fact that she’s watching him. It’s one of the things he likes so much; the quiet stillness of her, the way that she’s as comfortable in silence as he is.

Clint grabs two bowls out of the cupboard, fills them with noodles, and carries them over to where Natasha is seated on the couch. Sitting beside her, he nudges her shoulder with his and hands her a bowl. “It’s not authentic Thai cuisine,” he says, offering her an apologetic grin. “But I tried.”

“Oh no, this is _good_ ,” she says after her first bite. “Where’d you get the recipe?”

“Cookbook. Coulson gave it to me. I think he’s trying to turn me into a domestic or something.”

Natasha laughs, and Clint still can’t get over how much he loves the sound of her laughing. “That’s a lost cause. You’re hopeless.”

“Hey. I make good pad thai.”

“You do make good pad thai,” she concedes, dropping her head to his shoulder. It’s gestures like these that throw him off, make him wonder if what they have is simply familiarity or if it’s the beginnings of something else. Maybe they’re just partners and they spend more time together than apart and maybe he’s not quite sure where he ends and she begins. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

“You want to stay here tonight?” he asks, even though he’s not going to let her leave if he can help it.

She nods. “Yeah.”

 ***

“Remember,” Coulson tells them on the jet, “you two are alone on this one. The only people who know any details are myself, Fury, and Hill. No backup, no extraction. If you compromise this mission we’re not coming in after you. We can’t risk HYDRA knowing that they’re on SHIELD’s radar again.”

Natasha meets Clint’s gaze and they don’t need words to know what the other is thinking; the idea of going alone into a potentially dangerous situation without extraction isn’t exactly new and unfamiliar to either of them.

“You do the job,” Coulson continues. “You get out, you make it to the safe house, SHIELD meets you there. Everything clear?”

Natasha nods silently as she methodically disassembles and reassembles her gun.

“Good luck kids,” says Coulson, smiling his fatherly smile. He claps Clint on the shoulder as he leaves and just like that they’re alone and ready to disembark.

“Ready?” Clint asks Natasha.

“Waiting on you,” she replies.

 ***

Getting in is always the easiest part, Natasha thinks. Everyone always thinks that it’s some amazing feat to break in to a top-secret organization, when the reality of it is that they don’t care who gets in. No, the trick is getting _out_.

“Clear,” says Clint’s voice in her earpiece. She proceeds down the next hallway. A quick hack into the security system has wiped her image off the cameras, enabling her to walk through the empty hallways undetected. She reaches the door to the control room easily and punches in the security code, hoping that nobody in this damn organization is dedicated enough to their job to be in the control room at 3am. Luckily, they’re not.

“I’m in,” she whispers.

“Okay,” Clint replies, all business. “You know the drill. Ten minutes from the time you plug that thing in before they get the alert that someone’s trying to hack their system and by then you need to be long gone. Get the information you need and then get out of there.”

Natasha plugs in the flash drive, boots up the computer, and freezes. Because the symbol she sees on the screen is enough to make her blood run cold.

“Nat?” It’s Clint’s voice in her ear, reminding her that he’s watching her back and she can’t choke because they’re counting on her to get the intel on HYDRA. There’s only one problem.

“Clint,” she says, her voice low. “I know who we’re dealing with and it’s not HYDRA.”

“Shit. Okay. I’ve got your back, Nat. Do what you need to do.”

“I can’t be here.” _They know me_. But she can’t say that because they might be listening. Thinking back, she should have realized that it was all too easy. They let her get this far without any interference because they’ve been observing her. They wanted to see what she would do. And she’s already given too much away. Natasha swipes her fingers across the keyboard and then pulls out the flash drive, slipping it up her sleeve the same moment that a figure dressed in black emerges from the shadows.

“Natalia.” His voice is an ice cold knife that cuts her to the bone. “Someone is waiting for you.”

She draws her gun in one fluid motion, pointing it at his head. “Don’t you think he can wait a little longer?”

“He can’t,” comes another voice from the shadows, and then ten armed men emerge at once and Natasha curses herself for not being more observant, for trusting that the coast was clear. “Drop the gun, Tasha.”

To her credit, her voice doesn’t shake when she says “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

“Tie her up,” is his response.

She doesn’t protest as they tie her to a chair. As long as they’re not planning on killing her immediately, she can use this to her advantage in order to gain information. “What exactly are you trying to accomplish?”

“Your partner seems reluctant to show his face.” _Clint._ “I’d like to meet him.” _Clint, stay out of this. This isn’t your battle_. She knows he’s watching her, her eyes in the sky, and she hopes against hope that he’ll run far away because there’s no way she’s going to get out of this.

“He won’t come,” Natasha spits out, hoping that Clint hears it as a warning. _Leave, Clint. Leave while you still can_.

“Oh I don’t know about that. I can be _very_ persuasive.” With his metal arm, the arm designed for death and battle, he draws a knife and plunges it into Natasha’s thigh. She grits her teeth in pain but doesn’t let her scream escape. “Good,” he whispers with an approving nod, and it’s like she’s back in the training room. "Control the pain.”

He draws another dagger from his belt and draws the tip across her face lightly, a caress that leaves a thin trail of blood in its wake. “Tell me, Natalia. Where did you go when you left us?”

“Natalia’s gone. She doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Is that so?” he says quietly, tracing her collarbone with the point of his dagger. “Because I see her right here in front of me. A scared little girl. That’s all you ever were. But I can help you remake yourself again.”

“Thanks for the offer,” she says, with a lot more bravado than she feels, “but I’m actually not interested.”

He laughs then, and it’s a harsh, cold laugh that sends shivers up and down her spine. “Oh, Natalia. My Natalia. I never said you had a choice.”

“I’m not yours,” says Natasha, and her voice is hard, cold. “I’m not anyone’s.”

As if she said some sort of magic word, an arrow whizzes out of nowhere and impales one of the dozen men surrounding men surrounding Natasha.

“Show yourself,” the Winter Soldier calls out, sounding almost bored.

“I’d rather not,” comes Clint’s voice. “But if you insist…” he drops from the ceiling, landing catlike, and then straightens, his bow aimed at the Winter Soldier’s heart.

The Soldier doesn’t seem fazed by the arrow pointing at him. “One move and the girl dies.”

“That’s not your call to make,” says Natasha, and then she and Clint both move at once. She twists, ramming the back of her chair into one of the men behind her and knocking him over, slipping a knife out of her sleeve as she does so to cut the bonds that are tying her to the chair. As she straightens, she grabs the gun of the man she just knocked unconscious and fires blindly at the three men running at her, not even checking to make sure she hits her mark.

Natasha fires over and over until her gun clicks empty and then she pries two more from the hands of dead men and keeps shooting. Clint’s abandoned his bow in favour of his own gun and he and Natasha arrange themselves so they’re side by side and covering each other’s weak spots. It seems like it goes on forever; one man drops and the next advances and they’re outnumbered and all the odds are against them but somehow they’re both still breathing.

The Winter Soldier watches the firefight without intervening, and when the last man falls and Natasha turns her gun on him, he smiles a cruel smile. “You won’t kill me, Tasha.”

Clint watches her jerk back like his words have burned her, hears her voice crack like shattered glass as she says “Use that name again and I will.”

“I know I was tough and cruel. I had to be. But never doubt that I loved you, Natalia.”

A part of her wants so badly to believe him, wants to believe that he regrets all those times he hurt her, all those times that she cried herself back to sleep after he left her in the middle of the night because _you will never have anything to keep in this world_. But a bigger part of her knows that he’s lying because there’s only one man who’s never lied to her and he’s standing beside her, and in the time it takes her mind to process everything he whispers “Natasha.”

That’s all it takes. Her name. His voice. She meets Clint’s eyes and the fire in her voice could kill a thousand men when she says “Love is for children.” And then she pulls the trigger.

She knows it’s not over. It will take more than a bullet to kill him. But she also knows he’s not going to pursue them with a bullet in his stomach and so she lets herself collapse into Clint’s arms shaking under the weight of what she’s just done, lets him carry her out of the building, now empty of life but for them and the ghost she left bleeding in the control room.

It’s not until they’re outside and the building is behind them that Natasha shifts in Clint’s arms. “I can walk.”

“Nat, you have a knife in your leg.”

“I can walk,” she repeats.

He sets her on her feet gently, keeping an arm around her waist. If she leans heavily on him, he doesn’t mention it. They move slower like this, but he doesn’t mention that either. He understands her need to walk away from her demons and he knows he can’t carry the weight of it for her this time.

It seems like an eternity before they make it to the car they parked two blocks away. Clint helps her into the passenger seat before climbing in, grateful that Coulson made them both memorize the directions to the safe house because Natasha’s in no state to be driving.

She reaches for his hand as he starts the car and he doesn’t ask why. He’s learned that sometimes there _is_ no why, she just needs him. His thumb rubs soothing circles on the back of her hand as they drive and she doesn’t talk but he can hear her shaking breaths. He holds her hand and listens to her breathe for a while before he breaks the silence. “Tash.”

“Yeah?”

He’s careful with his words. “I don’t know what you need right now. I don’t know what you want from me right now. But…I’m here. Okay?”

She squeezes his hand. “Okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Can we get the knife out of my leg first?”

He laughs, more out of relief than anything. Relief that they’re both safe and somewhat unharmed. “Sure.”

***

The safe house, for lack of a better word, is an old run-down second floor apartment, on top of a bar that looks like it went out of business years ago, and only accessible by a fire escape.

“Fuck,” Natasha says when she sees the stairs.

She doesn’t protest this time when Clint picks her up and carries her gently up the steep stairs and through the door marked ‘Emergency Exit’. He sets her down on the bed while he does a quick sweep of the apartment and retrieves a first aid kit from the bathroom. It’s not much, but they’ve both made do with worse. He turns his attention to Natasha’s leg. The wound hasn’t bled much yet, because the blade is still embedded in her thigh, but he’s going to need to pull it out.

“Ready?” he asks her.

She grits her teeth. “Waiting on you.”

He pulls the knife from her leg slowly and immediately stems the blood flow with a towel. “Hold that,” he says to Natasha. Her hand replaces his and he threads the needle with quick, precise fingers. She lets out a hiss through clenched teeth as the needle enters her leg, but other than that she remains silent as he stitches her wound shut. When he’s finished, he covers it gently with gauze and tapes it down.

“Thank you,” she whispers, staring at the bandage on her leg.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

She shakes her head. “No. How about you?”

“I’m surprisingly okay.”

“I’m not.”

“I know.”

He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her to him so that her back is against his chest and her head is resting on his shoulder. She takes his hand, tracing a scar on his thumb with her fingers. “Where did you get this?”

“It’s a terrible story.”

“I want to hear it.”

He sighs. “Kitchen accident. I was slicing tomatoes and my hand slipped. I told Coulson it came from a knife fight in Prague because the real story is too embarrassing.”

“And you told me the truth? I’m honoured.”

They’re silent for a while and there’s a million questions Clint wants to ask her but he doesn’t know if they’re things he’s allowed to say. “How come you never read in Russian?” he blurts out.

She tenses. “How come you never act like anybody owes you anything?”

He doesn’t know what to say. They’ve reached an impasse and he knows she’s not going to be the first one to break. She’s given him so many broken pieces of her already and he has no right to ask for more, so he does the only thing he can do; he knocks down his own walls, takes her hand, and leads her through the shattered ruin. _I stopped keeping score_. He owes her this and he can’t hide it from her any longer.

“Places I’ve done wrong in,” he says.

She twists in his arms so that she’s facing him. “What?”

“The map on my wall,” Clint explains. “You asked me about it once. Asked if I was keeping track of cities I’ve been to. And I was. Well, sort of.”

“Elaborate.”

“Each dot on the map is a city or a country that I did some sort of wrong in back before I was with SHIELD. If I make it even in any of those places, the dot comes off the map. But…”

“But?”

He takes a deep breath. “I stopped keeping score, Tash.”

“What was the last city?” she asks, although she feels like she already knows.

His eyes flick up to meet hers and she can read the uncertainty and vulnerability and she almost wants to tell him that he doesn’t need to say it because she knows, but at the same time she needs to hear. It comes out as barely a whisper. “Warsaw.”

“Clint.”

“It was you. You were the reason I stopped keeping score. Because who was I to tell you that you didn’t owe me when I was still keeping track of everything I owed someone else? So I stopped keeping score and I figured that if you were the only good thing I ever did for the rest of my life, it was enough. You’re enough.”

Natasha bites her lip to keep it from trembling but she can’t hide the tears that are in her eyes. She blinks and they spill over, two shimmering lines tracking down her cheeks. She looks down but it’s too late, Clint’s already seen.

“Natasha.” He takes her face in his hands gently, tilting it upwards so that she’s looking at him. “I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

“Don’t apologize,” she says, her voice shaking just slightly, and it’s the same thing she said to him back on the floor of her apartment at SHIELD after he kissed her, and she had tears in her eyes then like she does now and maybe that’s what makes him kiss her again.

It’s tentative at first. Gentle. Slow. And then she kisses him back and he tastes the salt of her tears on her lips and it makes him hungry for more. Gentleness forgotten, he pulls her into his lap and crushes her to him as if he can hold her tightly enough that the two of them will become one. She straddles him as her fingers curl into his hair and her hips are pressing into him and he needs every part of her _now_.

She seems to be thinking right along with him because she breaks the kiss to pull her shirt over her head in one fluid motion and then she’s tugging at the hem of his and he’s more than happy to comply. And then he sees a manic glint in her eye and realization crashes down all around him. Gently, he takes her by the shoulders and pushes her back. “Natasha. Natasha, stop.”

She almost looks hurt. “Clint, I want this. Don’t you?”

“I do. God, Tash, how could I not? But I need this to be you and me, okay? No walls, no masks, no secrets. I don’t want the Black Widow. I just want you.”

She looks down, hands clenched in the fabric of his recently discarded shirt. “I don’t know how.”

“Hey. Look at me.” He tilts her chin up with a finger. “Do you trust me?”

She nods mutely, biting her lip.

“You say the word and I’ll stop.”

She nods again and he takes it as confirmation, as _yes, okay, go_. His fingers find the clasp of her bra and his eyes meet hers. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers.

Natasha shivers when he touches her, but she doesn’t ask him to stop and she doesn’t pull away. Hesitantly, her hands find his belt buckle, and she looks at him with a question in her eyes. He nods. He pushes his pants down and she kicks hers off and he pushes her backwards until his hands are on either side of her and he’s hovering over top of her.

“Tasha?” he asks softly, and it’s two questions in one.

The look in her eyes is all the answer he needs.

He lowers himself into her slowly, never breaking eye contact. She arches up to meet him, pressing her lips to his as he begins to move. It’s achingly slow at first, and tender in a way Natasha’s never experienced. He touches her body in a way that’s almost reverent, worshipful. Most men stare at her with lust in their eyes and make her feel dirty, but when Clint looks at her like this it makes her feel beautiful.

It’s not long before their silence is punctuated by her quiet moans and as Clint thrusts deep inside her he brings his lips to her ear. “You can let go, Tash. I’ve got you.”

She shatters in his arms and it tips him over the edge as well and they both fall apart. And in the silence that follows, they put each other back together.

There’s tears in her eyes again when Clint pulls back enough to see her face. “Aw, shit, Nat. I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”

She shakes her head. “Clint, no. You did everything right. I just…I didn’t know it could be like this.”

“Me neither,” he acknowledges, pressing a kiss to her forehead. She lets her head drop to his shoulder again and he strokes her hair until she relaxes and her breathing slows and she falls asleep to the feeling of his arms around her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I was on a schedule, this would be incredibly late. (Good thing I'm not on a schedule.) But I AM really sorry for the delay. I worked my butt off to get this done for you guys by tonight because I have a date with a mountain tomorrow and no time to write. 
> 
> I want to thank you all SO much for your support and your comments. I'm incredibly insecure about my writing and it really means a lot to hear that people are genuinely appreciating and enjoying what I've written. And thanks for sticking with me even though I suck at updating regularly. And on that note, heads up: updates may become less frequent (if that's even possible) when school starts up again. But I'll try to get some sort of once-a-week system going so I can keep myself on a deadline. 
> 
> Once again, your feedback is my cocaine. Literally. Please keep talking to me, I love hearing what you guys have to say.
> 
> Enjoy. <3

“This one,” she says, touching a two-inch scar that runs across his ribs.

“That one’s from my dad, actually. He used to get drunk and try to carve me up with a kitchen knife. My brother tried to get in the way, but he wasn’t quick enough that time.”

“Oh, Clint.”

“Don’t say it like that.” He doesn’t want her pity any more than she’s ever wanted his. He brushes his fingers across a jagged scar on her back, just under her shoulder blade. “This one.”

“Partner was a double agent. Said he had me covered and then he stabbed me in the back with a knife and left me for dead.”

Clint’s heart breaks as he imagines being stabbed in the back by a partner. “No wonder you don’t trust people.”

“I trust you,” she says softly. “This one.” It’s a short, thin scar that runs along the line of his jaw.

“Shaving.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I was.” He runs his thumb over the lumpy scar on the front of her shoulder and reaches behind her to touch its twin on the other side.

Her eyes soften. “You’ve seen that one before. You saved my life that night.”

“You hated me for it,” he says.

“Not anymore.” Her lips find his again and it’s impossibly sweet and he tries to reconcile this version of Natasha with the one who can snap a man’s neck with her thighs until he realizes that it’s futile. She’s a kaleidoscope, ever shifting, a different colour from every angle. Every version of her is in there somewhere. The art of her is learning which version he wants to see and how to call it to the surface.

“We should call Coulson,” he murmurs distractedly. “Let him know we didn’t fall off the face of the Earth.”

“He can wait.”

“Tasha.” She stills. “Can I call you that?”

She nods slowly. “It’s different when you say it.”

“Different how?”

“You’d never use me as a weapon against myself.”

She trusts him, Clint thinks, in a way he doesn’t deserve. A way he’ll never be able to measure up to. He wonders how long it’ll take her to figure that out. For his own selfish sake, he hopes it takes forever.

 ***

Coulson notices the change in them immediately as soon as he sees the two of them making their way slowly towards the jet, Clint supporting most of his partner’s weight. Natasha’s leaning on him a way she never would have before, not because she didn’t trust him before but because she’d never want anybody to know that she was capable of trusting. She’s different now, though. They’re both different. Despite the fact that Natasha’s visibly limping and Clint looks like he’s seen better days himself, the two look more at peace than Coulson’s ever seen. He swallows the urge to tell Fury that he was right when he pushed for this partnership, because sometimes two people who work best alone can work better together.

“We fucked up,” Clint tells him by way of greeting.

“I noticed,” Coulson says with a smile. “I seem to remember telling you something along the lines of ‘no collateral damage’.”

“To be fair,” Natasha says, sliding into her seat, “I don’t think our briefing included notes on what to do if we got kidnapped by KGB assassins. Although my memory _is_ a little foggy. Side effect of being stabbed.”

Coulson grins at her. “I’m so glad you didn’t die. I would have missed your unfailing optimism and joyful personality.” Natasha glares at him, but when he wraps an arm around her shoulders she allows herself to be pulled into his embrace. “Welcome home,” he says quietly in her ear. She doesn’t know how much Clint told him on the phone, but she knows that not much goes over Coulson’s head. This is his way of telling her, without actually telling her, that he knows enough about what happened to her in Budapest and he’s offering her refuge, should she choose to take it.

She does. “Thank you.” The smile she gives him as she pulls away is small, but it’s not forced.

Clint slips into the seat beside Natasha and she leans into him automatically like she’s not really thinking about it, head resting against his shoulder. “Tired?” he asks her.

“Yeah.”

“Sleep,” he says, stroking her hair gently until her breathing evens out. He keeps his gaze pointed downward for as long as possible to avoid seeing the smug look on Coulson’s face, but eventually he has to look up.

Coulson’s eyes are soft as he watches the two of them. His team. “She trusts you,” he tells Clint, and there’s a hint of envy in his voice as he says it. Clint doesn’t blame him. Trust is hard to come by in their business and when you find it, you hold it tight and you never let it go.

Clint brushes a piece of hair back from the forehead of his sleeping partner. “She trusts you too, you know. She’d never fall asleep in front of you if she didn’t.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this after all the shit you got for it,” Coulson says, shaking his head, “but you made the right call in Warsaw.”

“I could never have shot that arrow, Phil.”

“I know. And maybe there’s a reason.”

Clint tightens his hold on Natasha as if his arms can shield her from the rest of the world. “I believe it.”

 ***

It becomes a joke between them as soon as they get back to base and pass Maria Hill in the hallway, who asks casually, “How was Budapest?”

“Terrible,” Natasha says without preamble.

Hill glances at Clint who looks at Natasha and shrugs. “I had fun.” Because of course Natasha, always the professional, would report on the mission, while Clint’s mind is still full of what happened after. She jabs him in the ribs as they walk away and he grins at her, and the smile he gets in return threatens to drop him to his knees.

Fury greets them in debriefing with a firm “Tell me what I need to know,” and Natasha monotonously recounts the events leading up to her realization that she’d unknowingly breached a covert Red Room operation and, for good measure, throws in her entire history with the Winter Soldier. She tells the stories as if they happened to someone else but Clint knows it’s a façade and he can see right through the cracks, right into the depths of her, and if she’s not fooling him then she’s certainly not fooling Fury, but neither of them says anything and for that she’s grateful.

Fury, for all his no-nonsense professionalism, really _cares_. It’s obvious when he tells them “You’re off-duty until further notice. Get some rest. God knows you both deserve it.” He claps Natasha on the shoulder as the two of them leave his office and when she meets his eyes she sees the pride she never got to see in the eyes of her father and thinks that maybe her makeshift, misfit family is bigger than she originally thought.

Off-duty finds Natasha in the empty gym at six the next morning, working through a series of yoga poses in an attempt to relax her tight muscles. She’s interrupted mid-stretch by Maria Hill who throws a mat down beside hers and says “Okay. Spill.”

“Spill what?” she asks innocently.

“Budapest. Something happened. Something besides the mission.”

“Who wants to know?”

“Someone with a monopoly on the SHIELD betting pool.”

“I want half.”

Maria laughs. “So you _did_ sleep with Barton.”

“I never said that.”

“Romanoff.”

Natasha sighs. “Is this where you give me the anti-fraternization lecture? I’m surprised Fury didn’t do it himself. Unless he’s sending you to do his dirty work for him.”

“No lecture, and no, Fury didn’t send me,” Maria says, laughing again. “It’s just…I’m happy for you, Natasha. Clint’s a good guy. You’re good for him.”

“You think?”

“I do. You wouldn’t know, but he’s been different since you came to SHIELD. Less robotic. More alive. He’s happier with you.”

_I stopped keeping score_. Clint’s words echo in her mind. _You’re enough_. “I’m not who he thinks I am,” she says quietly.

“Actually,” Maria offers, “I think he knows exactly who you are.”

“I’m not a good person, Maria.”

“Maybe none of us are. That doesn’t mean you can’t take the good that comes to you. You deserve a life, Natasha. You deserve to be happy. Don’t sell yourself too short.”

 ***

It scares her. She finally admits it to herself one night, and that’s the night she slips away while Clint is still sleeping, laces up her running shoes, and runs until her legs are numb and shaking, runs like she’s trying to leave her feelings behind her because she cares, she actually _cares_ , and it’s terrifying. Her whole life, she’s known that she’ll be fine as long as she can distance herself, prevent herself from forming attachments. She’s learned that nothing comes of caring but a broken heart and sometimes broken bones to go along with it. _Love is for children. You will never have anything to keep in this world._ But there’s a feeling that comes with the fear, before the fear, and she thinks that maybe it’s what living is supposed to feel like. It feels like falling.

She lets herself back into Clint’s apartment and her chest clenches when she sees him sitting on the edge of the bed, looking lost. The hurt in his eyes is only visible for a second, however, before she crushes herself to him. His arms come up around her in an instant and she knows that maybe he doesn’t understand, but he forgives.

“How are you feeling?” he whispers into her hair, and it’s their old game all over again.

“Like I’m falling,” she says, words muffled by her face against his chest.

He pulls back so he can look at her. “Do you want to know how I’m feeling?” She nods. “I feel like I’m flying.”

“What’s the difference?”

He smiles sadly at her. “Maybe they just never told you that you had wings.”

 ***

It’s two weeks after Budapest when Fury stops Natasha as she’s leaving the gym. “How would you like to take out your old boss for me?” he asks.

She grins. “It would be my pleasure.”

Fury smiles back at her. “I was hoping you would say that.”

 ***

“How you get in is up to Romanoff,” Fury says, with a nod in Natasha’s direction. “She knows the inner workings of the KGB better than the rest of us.” They’re closeted in Fury’s office yet again, but this briefing feels different. This isn’t just about taking out a KGB leader, although obviously that’s part of it. For Natasha, this is vengeance. It’s taking a life in order to reclaim her own.

Natasha, to her credit, is displaying nothing but the cool professionalism that Clint’s come to expect from her in briefing, despite her inner turmoil. “The KGB is highly specialized in some areas, but highly flawed in others. I doubt they’ve updated their security, which means the codes I have will still get me into the building. The trick is getting Kryuchkov alone.”

“You do what you need to do,” Fury says firmly, “and then you get yourself out of there _alive._ Do you hear me? That’s an order.”

“Do we have an extraction plan this time?” Clint asks.

“I’m not stupid, Barton. I know the risks behind what I’m asking you to do. You’ll have SHIELD agents surrounding the perimeter, but they don’t move without a direct order from either of you. Which, incidentally, you can’t give if you’re dead.” He eyes Natasha, and his stare is a little too intense for comfort. “Stay alive.”

“You okay?” Clint asks her as they leave.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“The way Fury was looking at you.” He grabs her arm just above the elbow, pulling her to a stop so he can look into her eyes. “This isn’t a suicide mission, Nat.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I’m fine.” She swallows hard. “I need you to trust me when I say that.”

“Okay,” he nods. “Okay. I trust you.”

They walk in silence for a while until she asks the question that’s been at the back of her mind. “How do you trust so easily?”

_I don’t_. The answer is on the tip of his tongue and he’s about to tell her, but it’s not true. He trusts by instinct. He trusts until there’s a proven reason not to. It’s the reason he didn’t shoot her back when she was his mission instead of his partner. It’s the reason he didn’t hold a gun to her head to prevent her from going rogue during their first mission together. It’s the reason he lets her fall asleep in his arms every night. Because he trusts her.

He knows it’s not that black and white for her. He’s seen the scar where someone she once trusted stabbed her in the back. So he tells her, “I’ve been given more reason to trust than you have.”

They continue to walk through the hallways, side by side but not touching. It’s not until they’re off base that Clint reaches over and takes her hand. Natasha lets out a breath she doesn’t realize she’s been holding and lets Clint lead her to the coffee shop she’s beginning to think of as theirs instead of just his.

“How are you feeling?” he asks her, as he passes a steaming mug across the table.

She takes the mug, wrapping her hands around it to soak in the warmth. “I wish you wouldn’t ask me that question.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have to tell the truth.”

“And what’s that?”

“The truth? I’m terrified, Clint.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“It makes me weak.”

“It makes you _human_.”

She stares down into her mug, knuckles white from clenching the handle. “I thought they sucked all the human out of me.”

He doesn’t need to ask who _they_ are. “It’s not that easy to unmake a person, Nat. You’re tougher than that.”

She looks up at him then, her red-rimmed eyes like a window to her shattered soul. “You think so?”

“I know so.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer's block KILLED me this week. And then we got a frostbite advisory so I was literally forced to sit inside all day. Three cups of coffee and a bad pep talk later, we have this. 
> 
> Major shoutout to all you guys who are still with me despite the fact that I suck as a human being. And thank you SO much for all your lovely comments. They make my day so much better. (Your feedback is crack and I am addicted. Please don't stop.)
> 
> I'll be country-hopping this week, followed by the semester starting up, so I can't promise any updates for a while unless I receive miraculous inspiration sometime before Thursday. Just know that I have zero intentions of abandoning this story, and I'll update for you guys as soon as I can! <3

“So Nat, after you disable security-“

She interrupts him. “It won’t work.”

“What?”

“It won’t work. The second I disable security, they’ll know. There’s only one way for me to get in.”

“Nat-“

“There’s only ever been one way. I have to walk in unarmed. I have to surrender.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Clint, you have to. It’s the only way.”

“God _dammit_ , Natasha! Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice is cold when he speaks next. “I thought we agreed not to lie to each other.”

His words are meant to wound and they do their job. She looks away and won’t meet his eyes and he would regret everything he said if she wasn’t trying to send herself on a suicide mission without telling him.

“I’m telling you the truth now,” she says quietly, still looking down. “There’s no other way. I need you to let me do this.”

“Natasha. Look at me.” In her eyes is everything she can’t hide from him. Fear, because despite what she says, walking unarmed into a building full of KGB she turned traitor on terrifies her. Unspoken apologies, because he trusted her and she lied to him and now she might die because of it. “No one is making you do this,” he says gently, placing a palm against her cheek.

She reaches up and catches his hand with her own, holding him there. “I have to do this Clint. I have to make things even.” She pulls his hand away from her cheek and brings it to her lips, muffling her voice as she tells him “I’m still keeping score.”

He grips her fingers tightly. “You shouldn’t have to go in there alone.”

“You can’t face down my demons for me, Clint,” she says, smiling sadly at him. “Not this time.”

“This still isn’t a suicide mission.”

“I never said it was.”

“You come back alive. That’s an order.”

She leans forward, pressing her lips to his briefly. “I plan on it.”

 ***

It’s too easy. The red flags go up as soon as Natasha’s old security codes somehow get her into the building. Despite what she’d said to Clint and Fury, she didn’t think that would actually work. She was banking on having to explain her way inside, leave her weapons at the door, and beg an audience with her old boss. But the building is empty. Too empty.

_Trap_ , her brain screams. But it doesn’t matter. She has to keep going because if she knows Kryuchkov (and she does), he’ll be at the top of the building.

Her feet echo softly in the stairwell as she climbs. The floor is clean, and the corners free of dust. There’s nothing to suggest that the building has been abandoned except for the fact that there’s nobody to be found.

The door swings open silently when she pushes, and she freezes when she sees him standing there in the middle of the room. _Trap_ her mind tells her again, because if he knew she would come, how much else does he know? She draws her gun with a steady hand as she steps out of the shadows, pointing it at his heart.

“Natalia.” His voice is deep and smooth and sends a chill running down her spine. “I was hoping you would come alone. It will make things much easier.”  

“You knew I would come.”

“I knew they would send you.”

“How?”

“You think that you are free now, Natalia? You are still a puppet. The only difference is the person pulling the strings.”

“You’re wrong,” she says sharply.

“I’m right. You just don’t want to believe me.”

Her finger twitches on the trigger.

“You’ve grown so sentimental, Natalia. Allow me to make you a bargain. Your life, in exchange for theirs.”

Natasha’s heart is beating so wildly that she wonders why she can’t hear it. _This isn’t a suicide mission_. She focuses on keeping her gun hand steady so he can’t see her fear, gun still trained on his heart. “You’re really not in a good position to be making bargains.”

“You have SHIELD agents surrounding the perimeter of this building. Don’t bother to hide it, I know. The perimeter is rigged with explosives that will go off at the push of a button, so let me ask you Natalia, what puts _you_ in a position to be making bargains?”

“Clint,” she says urgently, because secrecy just went out the window. “Clint you need to move, there’s-“

“Stop talking,” says Kryuchkov calmly. “Or they all die.”

“ _Nat?_ ” comes Clint’s voice in her ear. “ _Nat, what’s going on? Are you okay?_ ”

“Tell me what I need to do,” she tells Kryuchkov in a low voice. “What do I need to do to save them?”

“Oh, Natalia,” he says, taking a step towards the wall. “This isn’t about you. It’s never been about you.”

His finger comes down on the button and Natasha fires, but as the bullet pierces his skull she already knows it’s too late. She hears the echoes of explosions all around her as the building begins to shake. So she does the only thing she can do because this is nothing she was ever trained for. She runs.

“Hawkeye!” she spits into her comm. “Clint, do you copy?” No answer. She curses under her breath as she races down the stairs. “Coulson?” _Please, God, someone answer me_.

Her handler’s voice crackles through her earpiece. “Status?”

“He had us made before I even went into the building,” she pants, racing toward the source of the explosions because if she knows Clint, that’s where he’ll be. “Rigged the perimeter. It was a trap.”

“Emergency backup headed your way.” Coulson’s voice is calm like he’s discussing dinner plans, not the potential death of every single SHIELD agent they had surrounding the perimeter. “Ten minutes.”

Natasha’s breath catches in her throat as she approaches the site of the explosions. The air is thick with smoke and dust, the ground littered with debris. And scattered among the detritus are the prone bodies of their team. She chokes back a sob. She hears a weak cough behind her and turns so quickly that she almost loses her balance. _Clint_.

“Tash,” he says weakly as she kneels beside him. His face is covered in blood, blood that seems to be coming from his ears, and Natasha tries not to think about what that might mean.

“Shhh.” She places a hand on his cheek, desperately willing herself not to let her tears spill over because it’s her turn to be strong this time and it’s the least she can do for him after everything he’s done for her. “You’re okay, Clint. You’re going to be okay.”

“Tash,” he says again, more insistently.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. Stay with me, Barton. That’s an order.” She turns his face towards her, forcing him to look into her eyes as she enunciates each word sharply. “Stay. With. Me.”

It feels like forever until Coulson’s team arrives and then it’s a flurry of activity as medical is taking care of the injured who survived the explosion. Someone pries Clint’s hand out of hers and then they’re surrounding him and she’s standing there watching and for once she’s grateful for the numbness because she thinks feeling would be too painful. As she stands there, lost, she feels the pressure of an arm around her shoulders and it’s only then that she realizes she’s shaking.

“You couldn’t have known, Natasha.” Coulson’s voice in her ear is soft and gentle. “How could you have known?”

One of the medics surrounding Clint turns to face Coulson. “We need to get him back to base.” Natasha turns, pressing her face into her handler’s shoulder because she can’t see this, can’t bring herself to look at the too-still body of her partner. _You will never have anything to keep in this world_. The tears sting the back of her eyes as she clenches her fists so tightly that her nails pierce the skin of her palms, and prays to a god she’s never believed in.

 ***

Natasha spends the flight back to New York in a daze. Coulson doesn’t try to call her out of it and for that she’s grateful. When they land and she follows without hesitation as they wheel Clint to medical, he doesn’t question her. He does, however, follow.

They tell her what they think she wants to hear; they’ve taken him to surgery, his condition is stable, she’ll be the first to know if anything changes. She sits completely still in an uncomfortable plastic chair, staring straight ahead, Clint's blood still staining her hands. Later, she thinks, the pain will catch up with her like a thousand knives to her skin, but for now she lets the numbness envelop her.

She looks up only when Coulson presses a Styrofoam cup of coffee into her hand. “It’s not your fault.” His voice is gentle.

“You can’t say that.” It comes out as a broken whisper. She tightens her hands around the coffee cup, holding it like a lifeline.

“Natasha,” he says gently, and his voice is a kindness she doesn’t deserve. “The last thing Clint would want you to do is blame yourself.”

He says it with a confidence she doesn’t understand, and she wishes she could be that sure of someone else. She wishes she could believe in Clint the way he believes in her.

When the doctor comes out, Natasha stands so fast that coffee sloshes out of the cup she’s holding. Coulson steps up beside her, placing a strong hand on her shoulder. “Is he going to be alright?”

“The explosion caused permanent damage to Agent Barton’s hearing,” the doctor tells them in a businesslike voice. “He’s deaf, but he should be able to gain back most of what he’s lost with the assistance of hearing aids.” She smiles at them. “He’s sleeping off the anaesthetic right now. He’s expected to make a full recovery.”

Natasha sags back against Coulson. “Can I see him?” she chokes out.

“Follow me.”

 ***

Clint wakes disoriented. His head is pounding and his mind feels fuzzy. Reaching up, he touches the bandage that’s wound tight around his head, covering his ears. _That explains it_. He’s aware of a pressure on his left hand and he turns his head slightly, wincing as he does so.

“Tash-“ he begins, but stops when he realizes he can’t hear his own voice. His chest tightens in panic because it’s not possible, he _can’t_ be, but Natasha’s eyes are sad and in them is everything he won’t be able to hear her say.

Slowly, she brings his hand to her mouth and he feels her lips move against his fingers, but he can’t hear her voice.

“Tash,” he says again, self-conscious of the fact that he can’t hear himself speaking. “Am I…deaf?”

Biting her lip to keep it from trembling, she nods. He blinks and the tears in his eyes spill over and she reaches out to brush them away with a tenderness he’s never seen from her before. He feels a sob escape from his lips, feels it because he can’t hear it. Natasha wraps her arms around him roughly and he lets his tears spill as he buries his face in her shoulder, and he can feel her lips moving against the top of his head and he cries harder because he can’t hear her voice.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he pulls back, eyes red. “Sorry,” he whispers.

She shakes her head, and then signs slowly, hesitantly. _It’s okay_.

For the first time, he’s grateful for the language training he had to go through in the Academy. His sign language is rusty, but it’s something he can understand. It’s a start.

_The doctor said you can wear hearing aids,_ Natasha continues. _Once they can take your bandages off. It won’t be the same, but you’ll be able to hear again. For now…_ she trails off, looking uncertain. She doesn’t know what to do. Clint’s always been the strong one in their partnership, the one who picked up her broken pieces in Kazakhstan and Budapest, the one who held her together when her world was threatening to fall apart at the seams. But now he needs her and she’s scared because she doesn’t know how to be there for him the way he’s always been there for her. Nobody’s ever needed her before.

Seeing the uncertainty in her eyes, Clint shifts slightly on his hospital bed so there’s a space beside him. “Come here.” His voice is rough.

Natasha climbs onto the bed and stretches out beside him, leaning carefully against him to offer what comfort she can. It seems to work because his breathing slows as he rests his cheek on top of her head. They sit there in silence and Natasha thinks that it’s a damn good thing they’ve never needed words.

 ***

When Fury comes in later, Clint’s asleep again, and Natasha’s moved back to the chair beside his bed. She drops his hand like she’s been burned. “Hey, boss.”

“Go home, Romanoff,” he says gently. “Get some rest. He’ll be fine.”

“Home,” Natasha repeats. “I never had one. The Red Room wasn’t a home, it was a prison. The KGB was a refuge because it beat being homeless and freezing to death. But home? This is the first one I can remember.” She takes Clint’s hand again, lacing her fingers through his like she’s making a claim, and maybe she is. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The ghost of a smile crosses Fury’s face. “I can see that splitting you two up isn’t an option.”

She shakes her head, determination etched in every feature of her face.

Now Fury really does smile. “It’s a good thing you’re the best team we have.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (?) first day of classes. Waking up at 6am for Physics is pretty high on my list of shittiest things in the world so I figured I'd start the day off right by posting this. From now on I'll be operating on a schedule called Monday, which means you can expect one update a week. Feel free to yell at me if I don't stick to my self-imposed schedule.
> 
> I want to thank you all again for your lovely comments which make me sound way cooler than I actually am. It makes me so happy to see that people are not only reading, but legitimately enjoying what I write. (To be honest I never expected this big of a response because I thought this story was going to be a total failure.) So thanks for your continued reading/support. You guys are the best. <3
> 
> And without further ado, here's the chapter! (I'll warn you in advance, it's not very plot-heavy but it needed to happen.) Enjoy! <3

Natasha finally gives in to Fury’s advice. Partially because Coulson comes in after Fury leaves and all but forces her to leave Clint’s side to get some sleep herself, despite her protests that she’s fine. Mostly because she can’t seem to find a comfortable sleeping position in the chair beside Clint’s hospital bed, and she really is tired.

Her SHIELD apartment feels wrong, somehow, cold and empty, and she realizes that she can’t remember the last time she slept here. There’s still a stain from where Clint scrubbed her blood out of the carpet the night she almost bled out on the floor, and she can’t stay here, not alone.

Natasha walks down the hall and lets herself into Clint’s apartment where she strips out of her still sweaty and blood-stained suit and pulls on one of Clint’s hoodies. The bed feels too big without him. She eventually falls into a fitful sleep, but it doesn’t last. It’s punctuated by nightmares and images of Clint’s body on the ground covered in blood and _you will never have anything to keep in this world_ and she jolts awake with a scream building in her throat and she has to bite her tongue to keep it down. She slips a hand under Clint’s pillow and her fingers brush against cold steel. Slowly, she pulls out a knife. Her knife. Why Clint’s been sleeping with it under his pillow, she doesn’t know. What she does know is that she’s not going to take a blade to her own skin, not tonight while Clint’s lying deaf in a hospital bed. She slides the knife back under the pillow and leaves the room.

She’s expecting Clint to be asleep when she enters the room, but he’s sitting in bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, staring at the wall. He turns towards her, and a ray of moonlight from the window illuminates his face and the lost look in his eyes. Natasha feels a lump rise in her throat as she makes her way towards him.

He opens his arms and she doesn’t hesitate. He pulls her into his lap and kisses her, long and hard and rough, clinging to her like she’s the sea and he’s desperate to drown. She can feel his tears on her face and taste the salt on her lips.

“I love you,” he whispers into her mouth.

She freezes.

“Shit,” he says quietly, shifting back. “Nat, I-“

She moves so that he can see her hands in the sliver of light that comes through the window. _Stop._ _You’re not thinking clearly._

_I’m thinking perfectly clearly_.

Natasha’s throat tightens because she won’t believe him, _can’t_ believe him. But how can she keep her heart untouchable when he’s looking at her like this? _Love is for children_ , she tells him.

“Oh Tash,” he says quietly. “You don’t really believe that.” He reaches up to wipe a tear from her eye and she chokes down a sob because she should be the one comforting him, not the other way around, but this is how it’s always been with them because she’s fluid and ever-shifting and Clint, in the midst of all his brokenness, is still solid.

His fingertips graze across her cheekbone and then he moves his hand off of her face and his signs are slow, deliberate, as he tells her, _Maybe we are children._

She shakes her head. _I don’t know how._

_That’s what you told me in Budapest._

_And you told me to trust you._ His eyes bore into her with an intensity she can’t bear and she wants so badly to be honest with him but she’s still trying to figure out the art of baring her soul to another.

Clint leans forward until his forehead is pressed against Natasha’s. It’s awkward, trying to sign with this little space in between them, but he can’t bring himself to care. _Do you trust me still?_ He looks at her uncertainly, needing her to answer but at the same time scared of what she might say.

Natasha nods against his forehead.

_Then let me help you. We can figure this out. Together._

Natasha takes a shuddering breath, hating herself for falling apart after promising herself that she would be strong for Clint. She looks down at her lap as she signs, _I’m sorry_.

“Tasha.” Clint tips her chin up with one hand and the tenderness in his voice makes her want to cry. He brings his other hand up between them and signs one-handed. _You have nothing to apologize for._

She shakes her head again. _I shouldn’t be the one falling apart._

_You’re not._ He takes her hands and kisses them softly before telling her, _You’re the one keeping me together._

 ***

“I thought I told you to go home,” Coulson scolds gently the next morning, when he enters to find Clint and Natasha tangled up in each other in the narrow hospital bed.

“I did,” she says softly, signing the words at the same time so Clint can understand what she’s saying. _This is home_ , she signs, for Clint’s benefit because she knows Coulson doesn’t understand, and Clint tightens his arms around her as he realizes what she’s saying.

Coulson sighs. “I really hate to do this, guys. Especially now. But Romanoff, you’ve got briefing in ten. Alone.”

“No,” she spits vehemently.

“You have a job, Natasha,” Coulson tells her firmly. “Everything else comes second. Do I make myself clear?”

Clint can feel her body tense against his. In the absence of sound, he has to rely on feeling, and so he listens to Natasha’s body, the hard, tense lines of her that scream something is wrong. _It’s okay_ , he tells her.

_I’m not leaving._

_I’ll still be here when you come back. I’m not going anywhere, Natasha._

She turns, pressing her face into his shoulder like he can shield her from the world, because he can. He’s done it before. But not this time. She presses her forehead against his, briefly, and signs, _I’ll come back_.

His eyes are soft. _I know_.

***

“This is ridiculous!” Natasha exclaims, frustrated.

“Romanoff,” Fury warns.

She sits back in her chair, face impassive. “I’m sorry. This is ridiculous, sir.”

Coulson chuckles under his breath, earning him a glare from Fury. He looks away hastily, mumbling an apology.

Fury turns his gaze back to Natasha. “If it makes you feel any better, we’ve all agreed that you’re the best person for the job.”

Natasha’s not convinced. “This is a babysitting gig.”

“It’s Stark. You’re one of the few people we trust to be able to handle him. We need you on this, Romanoff. You know I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t need you.”

Natasha sighs, accepting her fate. She knows Fury’s right. She also knows that a big part of the reason she doesn’t want to go is because she doesn’t want to leave Clint alone in the wake of disaster left by their last mission. Although the idea of babysitting Stark doesn’t sound too appealing either. “Please tell me I don’t have to fuck him.”

Fury smiles at her. “If he so much as touches you, you have my permission to castrate him.”

“I think I can work with that.”

“I’m not unreasonable,” he says gently. “You leave in two weeks.”

Natasha sighs with relief. Two weeks is time. “Thank you, sir,” she says quietly, turning to leave.

“Romanoff?” She looks back over her shoulder. “Look after Barton.”

She nods once and then pushes the door open to step out of Fury’s office. Coulson follows, falling into step beside her as her subconscious guides her back to medical and Clint. “Natasha,” he says. She doesn’t look at him. “I’m not going to ask you what’s going on because I trust you. But I need to know that whatever it is isn’t going to compromise you or Barton in the field.”

“I thought you knew me better than that, Coulson.”

“I thought love was for children,” he counters.

She stops walking and finally looks at him. “What did Clint tell you?”

“That he loves you. Just not in those words.” He looks at her with gentle eyes and, not for the first time, she imagines him as a father. She remembers the words she said to Clint after they got back from Kazakhstan. _We don’t have family. So we’ll make our own._

Natasha sighs heavily. “What do I do, Phil?”

“That’s up to you,” he says gently.

 ***

Clint lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying not to feel sorry for himself. The absence of sound leaves too much time for thinking, and his thoughts are louder than he’d like them to be. They clamour for attention at the front of his mind and for the first time, he understands why Natasha would take a blade to her own skin, because pain would be infinitely better than this.

And just when he’d thought that everything was as fucked up as it could possibly be, he’d told Natasha that he loved her. It’s not like he doesn’t know, God, he thinks he’s known ever since he couldn’t let his arrow fly in Warsaw. But he never meant to tell her, especially not like this. He hears her voice in his head and if he closed his eyes he could see the words on her hands. _Love is for children_. If he’s honest with himself, it’s the same thing he believed for most of his life. That is, until she fell into his life and showed him that someone who kills and destroys with a ferocity bred from years of hatred can love just as fiercely.

The door opens, and he hates that he has to rely on his eyes to tell him that. A surge of anger washes over him, anger at the fact that he can’t hear a goddamn thing, but it quickly fades as soon as his partner walks into the room. He calls upon his other senses to tell him things about Natasha that his hearing can’t; the soft look in her eyes when they meet his, the faint smell of vanilla from her shampoo, and the strong way she touches him, not holding back, because she of all people knows that he’s far from broken.

A declaration of love burns on his tongue again, but he knows she’ll dismiss it as him not being in his right mind. He knows it’s because she’s scared; scared of the idea that someone might actually love her, and if he’s honest with himself, the idea that he loves her terrifies him. Everything he’s ever loved is dead and gone and damaged and broken and he doesn’t want her to end up the same. But she’s one of the only good things in his life, especially now, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take it.

_Where’s Fury sending you?_

_Malibu. To keep an eye on Stark. Apparently being a fucking babysitting service is the only thing I’m good for._

_Alone?_ He knows what the answer’s going to be. He knew the second he saw her face when she walked into the room. She gives him a small nod. “Fuck,” he says out loud.

_You’re telling me_.

_When do you leave?_

Natasha shifts on the edge of his bed. _Two weeks_.

_I’ll be better in two weeks. I can-_

_Clint._  She interrupts him, stilling his hands with her own. He looks down at their joined hands until she finally lets go. _One step at a time,_ she tells him.

He nods slowly, opening his arms, and she leans in until he can wrap them around her. She’s never felt so safe in someone’s arms before and it scares her more than she wants to admit. Clint can feel the tension in the lines of her body and he whispers her name into her hair, over and over until she relaxes into his arms. “Natasha. Natasha, Natasha, Natasha.”

The words she wants to say are on the tip of her tongue but she knows he won’t be able to hear her. So she whispers them into his chest like a coward and it tears her apart inside, the fact that his declaration was so raw and open while hers is a secret from everyone but herself.

***

_It’s okay,_ Natasha tells him, her signs small and gentle.

It’s been a week and Clint’s back in medical to get his custom SHIELD-issued hearing aids. To say he’s nervous would be an understatement. It’s been a whole week of silence, of Natasha having to interpret for him and everyone else at SHIELD walking around him on eggshells, and it’s all going to be over in the next few minutes. That is, unless something goes wrong. _What if they don’t work?_

_They will._

_How do you know?_

_Trust me._

He swallows hard. _Okay._

Doctor Brighton doesn’t waste time on an explanation she knows Clint can’t hear. Instead, she simply hands him the hearing aids, shows him where the switch is that turns them on and off, and tells Natasha to contact her if there are any problems.

Clint looks lost as they walk out of medical together, turning over the small objects in his hands and staring at them like he’s not sure what to do. Natasha’s throat tightens as she looks at him and thinks of all the ways he’s been strong for her. She owes it to him to be strong for him. Once they’re in the privacy of Clint’s apartment, she stills his hands with her own. He looks up at her and the uncertainty in his eyes breaks her heart. Slowly, she wraps her hands around his, guiding them up towards his ears. She helps him slip the aids in, one at a time, and then she looks into his eyes as she switches them on.

His face changes instantly. She takes in the small details; watches his eyes widen, hears his sharp intake of breath, sees the smile begin to form on his face. It’s the first smile she’s seen from him in a week and it lights up the room in a way that makes the sun look dim in comparison.

“I can hear,” he breathes. “Nat, I can hear!”

His wide eyes make him look like an excited child and she laughs because she can’t help it.

“Your laugh is my favourite sound in the world,” he tells her, and the idea is so ridiculous that it makes her laugh again. “Nat,” he says seriously. “I mean it.”

“Do you want to know what mine is?” she asks him quietly.

He nods, trying to hide the fact that the sound of her voice is making him breathless.

“Rain.” The look in her eyes is distant and Clint wants to ask her where her memory is taking her, but he doesn’t want to interrupt her because he wants to hear her talk, wants to hear her laugh, wants to hear _her_. “Heavy rain,” she continues. “Like a thunderstorm. There’s something so beautiful about something that can simultaneously destroy and renew.”

“Like you,” he says softly.

“Clint.” It’s almost a warning.

“I meant it, Natasha. I mean it. I-“

“Stop.” She cuts him off gently, but firmly.

He shakes his head. “No. I love you, Natasha, and I’m not ever going to stop. And if you don’t love me back that’s okay, but if you believe one thing, believe that I am not ever going to stop loving you.”

The mask he’s accustomed to seeing on her face is gone. All her walls have shattered around her and she’s standing there looking broken and lost and unsure. Looking like a child. It’s fitting, he thinks. Love is for children, after all.

“Clint,” she says. “I can’t…I don’t…”

He cuts her off. “It’s okay. I’m here, Nat, and I’m never leaving. I made you a promise and I’m going to keep it. I’ll be whoever you need me to be for as long as you need me. But please, don’t ask me to stop loving you because that’s the one thing I can’t do.”

“Okay,” she whispers.

He takes a step towards her and wraps his arms around her, pressing his lips to the top of her head. For a second, Natasha forgets about Tony Stark and SHIELD and Malibu and everything else that seems so insignificant in the light of everything Clint’s just said. She presses herself closer to him as if his arms around her can shut out the world, and tries to lose herself in this feeling she can’t quite understand.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday guys! I have to admit, I didn't think I would have this finished, but somewhere between the first week of classes, training, pathetic attempts at a social life, and scaling a mountain, I found time to write it. It's short, but hopefully the content should make up for the lack of words. ;)
> 
> If you're bored I'd recommend you listen to Masterpiece Theatre pt.3 by Marianas Trench because it's what I had in my head the entire time I was writing this. (Also, it's a phenomenal song.)
> 
> PLEASE continue to let me know what you think! I love reading your comments. :)  
> Thanks for sticking with me and enjoy! <3

“That bad, huh?”

“You have no idea.” Natasha tucks the phone awkwardly between her ear and her shoulder as she pulls a mug out of the cupboard, fills it with water, and sticks it in the microwave, rummaging in the cupboard for tea as the water heats. “How’s SHIELD?”

“Surprisingly boring, without you here.”

“You’re just saying that to get me to come back.”

“Is it working?”

“I hate Stark.”

She can hear Clint sigh on the other end of the phone. “I know, Nat. God, I know. I hate him too.”

Natasha lets out a breath, taking her mug out of the cupboard and popping a teabag into the water. The scent of peppermint, although usually soothing, does little to calm her frayed nerves. “I can’t stand the way he looks at me, Clint. I feel dirty. Like another one of his whores.”  
“Natasha.”

“Maybe Fury picked me for this mission because Stark and I are so similar. We use people, and then we discard them. No wonder I understand exactly how his mind works.”

“You’re not like Stark, Nat.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You don’t use people.”

Natasha shakes her head before she realizes that Clint can’t see her. “How can you be so sure?”

“You’d never use me.” His voice is smaller, quieter, as if he’s almost unsure. As if he needs confirmation that she wouldn’t use him. As if she ever could.

“Clint,” she says softly. “Of course not. You know I didn’t mean that.”

“When you first came to SHIELD you told me not to trust you.” She can hear the smile in his voice.

“And you didn’t listen.”

He chuckles, a deep, throaty sound that makes her miss him deep in the pit of her stomach. She never knew she could miss someone, never knew she could crave someone’s presence the way she craves his. Her anger and frustration with Stark is replaced by a desperate need to feel his arms around her, to lose herself in him, to taste her name on his tongue.

“Tash?” he inquires, and she realizes that she’s been silent for too long. “What’s wrong?”

“I miss you.” She whispers the confession into the phone like it’s her biggest secret, so quiet he can barely hear her.

“Tash,” he says gently. “Natasha, listen to me.” And then he rattles off a string of coordinates. She’s just barely committed them to memory when she hears the click in her ear telling her that he’s hung up.

Pulling her hair back into a loose ponytail, Natasha heads out the door, grateful that Stark doesn’t seem to care about what Natalie Rushman does in her down time.

 ***

Clint’s coordinates lead her to a dive bar just two blocks away from the Malibu safe house. She skirts a group of drunk men and a few tourists before sitting on a stool in the corner, waving away the bartender when he approaches her.

It’s been seventeen minutes when she finally feels a hand on her shoulder. Clint can feel Natasha’s years of training kick in as she tenses under his hand like she’s ready to fight him, and he can feel her make a conscious decision to relax. He leans forward until his lips are brushing her ear. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She turns to look at him with hooded eyes and _fuck_ , if he wasn’t a goner already, he would be now. “What’s it going to cost me?” she purrs.

“No strings attached,” he replies, voice low. “Unless you want them to be.”

She nods as if she’s considering his offer. “Not here. Somewhere more…intimate.”

He catches her drift immediately and lets her lead the way out of the bar, not failing to notice the way eyes follow her as she crosses the floor, wanting to touch her or hold her in some way that says _this is mine_ , but knowing that she would never let him in a public place like this while she has a cover to maintain.

Clint wants to take her hand as soon as they’re outside but he waits for her to give him permission to touch her. He doesn’t have to wait long. She reaches out and he laces his fingers through hers, aware of the way she grips his hand just a little tighter than usual. He can see the tension in the lines of her shoulders and the tightness of her lips and knows he made the right call coming here. He’s still technically on leave from SHIELD. “I don’t give a damn what you do on your off time as long as you’re here when we need you,” Fury had told him when he’d asked for permission to come to Malibu. He knows it’s their boss’s way of telling him to look after his partner and he’s more than happy to comply.

“Have you eaten?” Natasha asks him calmly. “There’s a really good Thai place around the corner.”

He doesn’t want to eat. He wants to take her back to the safe house and slam her against a wall and fuck her until she forgets her name. But she has dark circles under her eyes and her face looks thinner than he remembers and he thinks she could benefit from getting some food in her. “Takeout?” he asks hopefully.

“Takeout,” she agrees.

Her lips are on his the second the door closes and Clint only takes time to deposit their takeout containers on the table in the hallway before his hands are on her hips and he’s pressing her roughly against the wall. She rips her own shirt off impatiently as he fumbles with the button on her jeans, finally opening them and pulling them down to her ankles. He lifts her as she steps out of her pants and she wraps her legs around his waist, back still pressed to the wall as Clint discards his own shirt.

“Couch,” she gasps into his mouth.

“Way ahead of you, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that,” she says, but the way she kisses him betrays her. It’s hard and rough and needy and he’s delirious with the feeling of her as he stumbles to the couch with her in his arms.

Clint sets a furious pace and Natasha follow suit and he knows it’s going to be over far too soon, but as his name tumbles from her lips he finds he can’t bring himself to care. She buries her face in his shoulder as her shaking subsides and he holds her to him tightly like she’s the only anchor in the midst of a storm, and he doesn’t want to drown this time.

 ***

Later, when she’s curled up against his side wearing his shirt, she says “Tell me something true.”

“I love you,” he replies simply.

“They used to tell me that I was unlovable,” she says quietly. “That I was meant to be lusted after; that men like Stark would look at me with desire in their eyes and my job was to give them whatever they wanted.”

“You’re not that person anymore.”

“Every time he looks at me I feel like I am.” Natasha looks down at her clenched hands as she spits out her confession. “But then you look at me and…and…”

“And what?” Clint prompts gently.

She raises her eyes to look at him. “You look at me like someone I’m not and I wonder how long it’s going to be before you realize that I can’t be that person for you.”

“Natasha. Do you really think I don’t know exactly who you are?”

She stares at him, uncomprehending.

He drags a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “I know you’re still keeping score. And I know how hard it is to look at yourself in the mirror and not see a killer, God, Natasha, I _know_. But don’t ever, not for one second, believe that you’re not worthy of being loved.”

“Is it worth it?”

“What?”

“Loving me,” she says hesitantly, the words foreign on her tongue. “Is it worth it?”

He kisses her softly, sweetly, and it’s such a contrast from earlier, and he knows that she doesn’t need him to be gentle but she wants it all the same. When he finally pulls back and rests his forehead against hers he whispers and she can feel his breath on her lips. “Every minute.”

Natasha closes her eyes, focusing on the proximity of him. “Clint.”

“Yeah, Nat?”

“Thanks for being here.”

“I’ll always be here,” he says, playing idly with a strand of her hair. “Wherever ‘here’ is. I made you a promise, Natasha.”

“Tell me something else that’s true,” she whispers.

“I’m never going to leave you.”

 ***

Natasha’s gone when he wakes up in the morning because Natalie Rushman still works for Tony Stark and Natalie Rushman can’t show up to work late. Natalie Rushman also most certainly can’t be sleeping with an off-duty SHIELD agent, but they’ve both chosen to ignore that particular problem.

Even though Clint expected her to be gone he can’t stop the brief jolt of pain in the pit of his stomach as his fingers stretch out and feel nothing but cold, empty sheets. He can’t help thinking that one day Natasha will have left, and not just to go babysit Tony Stark. One day she’ll pick up and leave and get on a plane to Veracruz or Madrid or Verona because she’s like a hurricane; leaving destruction in her wake but moving on, always moving and never looking back. It kills him to think that he might end up being the destruction.

He’s jolted out of his melancholic reverie, however, when he sees the note taped to the coffee maker, hastily scratched in a hand that can only be Natasha’s.

 

_C-_

_I drink it black because it’s bitter like my old home and sometimes I need to feel sad for a while._

_I love the sound of rain because we never heard it in Russia._

_Falling asleep in your arms was the first time I felt warm._

_I’d write it on paper but I never had a way with words and I need to hear myself say it. I need you to hear me say it so you can tell me that it’s true._

_-Tasha_

 

He holds the torn sheet of notebook paper like it’s something precious, fingers tracing the indents on the back left by her pen. Pen. It surprises him that she wrote something so intimate, so personal, in pen instead of pencil. Pencil can be erased, rubbed off, made to look like it never existed. The fact that Natasha wrote in pen means that this is permanent. Clint feels a weight lift off his shoulders at the realization that some things aren’t meant to be erased. He reads her words over and over until he has them committed to memory, and then he folds the note gently and tucks it between the pages of his passport.

The day ticks by slower than Clint would ever have believed to be possible, and he wonders how he can possibly miss Natasha even more here in her safe house than when he was back at SHIELD. He passes the time by going through her fridge, trying to scrounge up an adequate amount of food to make dinner. He settles on stir fry when it’s clear that that’s the only option besides takeout again, and he’s just finished throwing slices of a slightly questionable looking green pepper into the pan when the front door slams shut.

It takes Clint a split second to assess the situation, read the anger and frustration plastered all over Natasha’s face, take three large strides in the direction of the door, and wrap his arms around her. “What happened?” he asks her.

Her voice is muffled as she replies “I blew my cover and yelled at him in Latin.”

Clint chuckles. “That’s a new one.”

“Stop,” she groans, banging her head lightly against his chest.

“Hey,” he says gently. “Stop beating yourself up and come to the kitchen. I made food. Well, I attempted to make food with the pathetic provisions you have in your kitchen.”

Natasha groans again, punching him lightly in the shoulder. “Stop that. You know I don’t cook.”

“Oh believe me, I know. Aren’t you so glad you have me?”

“Yeah,” she says softly. “I am.”

He takes her hand. “Come on. Food.”

They eat in silence. Natasha alternates between looking dazed and staring at her stir fry as if it’s personally offended her until Clint puts his fork down and reaches for her hand across the table. “What’s going on?”

She looks up at him, eyes wide and vulnerable and unsure.

“How are you feeling?” he tries, because old habits die hard and he’d be a fool to think that she’s come to terms with all of her feelings.

“Confused,” she says. Clint nods. Confused isn’t exactly a new one. He waits patiently, knowing there’s more she hasn’t said. “Terrified,” she finally adds quietly.

He runs his thumb lightly over the back of her hand. “What’s scaring you?”

She takes a deep breath, looking down at their joined hands. “I love you, Clint. I love you and that terrifies me because whenever you love something you give it the power to destroy you and if you ever destroy me I don’t think I’ll be able to recover.”

“Tasha,” he says simply, and his voice is teeming with a thousand emotions she couldn’t name if she tried, and one she knows because she feels it too.

“Tell me something true,” she whispers.

“I love you, too.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this one so I hope you guys have just as much fun reading! (The part about the sunrise and the mountain was partially inspired by the mountain I climbed yesterday, but we saw the sunset instead of the sunrise. I'm such a sucker for sunrises though.)
> 
> As always, eternal love to everyone who's stuck with me throughout this. You guys are the best. <3

Clint finds himself wishing that Natasha wasn’t so good at long undercover missions so that she wouldn’t get sent on so many long undercover missions. They’re still partners of course; they’re still the best team SHIELD has, but she’s been out in the field alone far more often than he’d like. He knows she can handle herself in the field, probably better than the rest of SHIELD. That’s not what he worries about. He worries about her in her downtime when she stops running briefly and it all catches up with her. He worries about her being alone when her nightmares resurface and she wakes up with tears in her eyes and no one to wipe them away. He worries about the scars on her arms that still haven’t fully faded.

She’s just barely returned from a brief stint in Amsterdam when Coulson approaches the two of them in the training room looking apologetic. Phil knows what they are and what this does to them and he hates it. He knows that Natasha, forever the professional, will dutifully accept her fate and ship out to wherever SHIELD sends her, but he knows she hates it. He knows it’s harder on Clint, who is so often the one left behind. He does his fair share of solo missions too, but it’s quick in and out work, nothing like Natasha’s agonizingly long undercover missions.

“Iraq,” Coulson says without preamble. Natasha makes a face. “It’s going to be a long one,” their handler continues.

“Will I be back for Christmas?” she jokes. Coulson shakes his head sadly. It’s June. “Fuck,” she whispers under her breath. Clint brushes his hand against hers lightly, offering what comfort he can. He wants to pull her into his arms and feel every part of her body against his but they still don’t do that, not in public. She grabs his fingers briefly and squeezes them tightly before letting his hand fall, turning back to Coulson. “What am I doing?”

“Infiltrating a human trafficking operation.” She nods mutely, but Clint can see the tension in the lines of her shoulders and he knows what kind of memories this brings to the forefront of her mind. Before he can open his mouth, Coulson turns to him. “You’re her SHIELD contact. She’ll be reporting back to you the whole time, and you’ll be reporting to me. Briefing tomorrow morning in my office.” Coulson hands Natasha a paper folder and walks away.

“You okay?” Clint asks Natasha softly.

She nods, but with her hands she tells him _not here_. He follows her out of the training room and it feels symbolic, because he’d follow her into hell if she asked him. He thinks maybe he already has.

“I’m fine,” she tells Clint, once they’re in the privacy of his apartment and she can tear down her defenses. “I just don’t like what this makes me remember.”

“You don’t have to-“ he begins, but she silences him with a shake of her head.

“I do, Clint. I don’t wish my past upon anyone. Knowing that this is happening, knowing that I can stop it, this is something I need to do.”

“I’m worried about you,” he confesses.

“I know. But I can handle this.”

“You don’t have to be strong for me, Tash.”

She shakes her head sadly. “I have to be strong for myself.”

 ***

“Don’t leave,” he tells her in the morning when they’re tangled up in each other in bed and her breath is ghosting across his collarbone.

“Don’t tempt me,” she whispers back.

“Let’s quit SHIELD,” he says. “Get a house somewhere and settle down. Have a life.”

“Could you really be happy like that?” she asks.

“Could you?”

“This is the only life I’ve ever had, Clint. The only _home_ I’ve ever had. I’m a spy. I don’t know how to be anything else.”

“You could learn. We could learn. Together.”

“Is that really what you want, though?” she asks, and he knows that it’s not. Because no matter how many other lives he could dream up for the two of them, he knows he’ll always choose this one because it’s real. As if on cue, Natasha whispers, “Tell me something true.”

He tells her, “You’re the only home I want.”

And when she presses her lips to his he closes his eyes because he doesn’t want to see her leave. They don’t make promises because they both know that every goodbye is the last.

 ***

It’s the longest Natasha’s been undercover in her time at SHIELD. Clint spends the first few weeks pretending it’s just a short cover; that she’ll be back in a month at most. By mid-September he doesn’t bother to try fooling himself any longer. She calls him periodically to check in because he’s her contact, but her messages are short and cryptic because she can’t risk blowing her cover.

It’s the little things he misses the most. The easy camaraderie that he doesn’t share with anyone else on base. The quiet ease of her, the way they don’t have to talk because they can just _be_. His living quarters, which always used to feel small, are too big and wide and empty with her gone. There’s pieces of her everywhere; her sweater slung haphazardly across a chair, her stack of books on the coffee table, her favourite peppermint tea beside his coffee in the cupboard. He makes himself a cup one night; he’s never been much of a tea drinker but the smell reminds him of her, and midnight finds him rereading the letter she wrote him in Malibu over and over, staining it with his tears until the words are barely legible but it doesn’t matter because they’re written on his heart in something so much more permanent than ink.

 _Falling asleep in your arms was the first time I felt warm_. His bed feels too big, just like everything else, and when he lies awake at night plagued by nightmares that only she can chase away, he wonders if she’s awake too.

The cryptic messages he decodes from her check-ins become more hopeful. He doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing over there because she can only tell him so much, but he knows that it’s a lot more complicated than just taking down an organization because there are so many innocents involved.

When he calls her on her birthday, a cold blustery day in November, he’s not expecting her to answer. The phone is on its seventh ring and he’s about to hang up when she finally picks up, sounding slightly breathless. “Romanoff.”

“Natasha.”

The silence on the other end of the phone lasts for so long that Clint’s about to hang up and blame it on a bad connection when he finally hears her let out a long breath. “I miss hearing your voice.”

“Where are you?”

“On top of a mountain.”

It’s so _Natasha_ that he almost laughs. “Why?”

“I wanted to see the sunrise,” she says quietly.

“What does it look like?”

“Beautiful.”

“Tell me.”

Her words paint the picture for him; he can hear the colours in her voice and if he closes his eyes he can almost imagine that he’s there with her, until she jolts him out of his reverie. “Clint.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m coming home soon.” _Home_. The word resonates in the very marrow of his bones.

“When?” he breathes.

“I don’t know. Soon. As soon as I can.” He hears longing in her voice and he hopes it’s real, hopes it’s not just his mind playing tricks on him because it’s been so long since they’ve talked, _really_ talked, and he misses her so much it hurts.

“Happy birthday,” he chokes out, because there’s so much else he wants to say but now isn’t the time or place for confessions.

“I have to go,” she says, her voice apologetic.

“Natasha, wait.” There’s silence, but he can hear her breathing on the other end of the line. “Tell me something true.” They’re Natasha’s words and they always have been, but this time she’s not the one who needs reassurance.

“The sunrise would be better if you were here,” she says, so quietly that he has to strain to hear her.

“See you soon, Nat.”

Clint hears a knock on his door just as the line goes dead in his ear. “Open,” he calls, voice rough, even though he’s not mentally prepared to deal with anyone right now.

Coulson’s eyes drift from the phone in Clint’s hand to the raw emotion on his face and understanding fills his eyes. “I came to see if you wanted to get coffee but…bad time?”

“No,” Clint says quickly, standing up and running a hand through his hair. “Good time. I could use a distraction.”

 ***

“How do you do it, Phil?” Clint asks him over his coffee. “Your…your cellist. Don’t you ever miss her?”

“Every day,” Coulson tells him. “But when it’s the kind of thing you get once in a lifetime, you take that and you hold onto it and you never let it go.”

Clint nods, staring at his coffee cup.

“What are you thinking about?” Coulson asks after Clint’s been silent for too long. _How are you feeling?_ It’s an echo of the question he asks Natasha whenever she retreats into herself and hearing the same thing come out of his handler’s mouth makes him want to cry.

He doesn’t cry. Instead he continues to glare at his coffee cup as he says, “Love sucks.”

“It does,” Coulson agrees. “But it’s worth it.”

 ***

December comes, with the ever-present chill that accompanies it, and Clint finds himself hating the cold more than ever without Natasha there to joke about how winter in New York feels like spring compared to Russia. She told him during her last check in that she’d be home before the new year and he wishes there was a way to hold her to that promise.

When Coulson invites Clint to his place for Christmas dinner, he wants nothing more than to decline. He wants to sit in his apartment with a bottle of vodka and drink until he can’t remember what it feels like to be lonely. But he knows Coulson will never let him get away with that so he says yes to the damn Christmas dinner, figuring he can get drunk just as easily at Coulson’s.

Clint keeps his phone within reach on the dresser as he changes into a slightly less worn out sweater and runs his hands through his hair until it looks like he didn’t just wake up. Natasha was supposed to call at four for her check in and it’s six minutes after. He’s trying not to let himself get too worked up over it because six minutes is nothing, but she’s never been this late before. He keeps one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the phone for the entire twelve minute drive to Coulson’s, but it doesn’t ring.

Coulson's already at the door when Clint arrives, a beer in hand. “Relax,” he says, clapping Clint on the shoulder. “It’s Christmas. Let yourself have a good time.”

“She missed her check in, Phil,” Clint says, his voice low.

“Okay,” Coulson nods. “Okay. We’ll deal with that when we need to. It’ll be okay, Clint.”

Clint follows Coulson into the living room and collapses on the couch, taking a swig of his beer. It doesn’t burn nearly enough going down his throat and he wishes absurdly for something stronger. He nods at Maria Hill across the room, sitting between two agents whose names he can’t bother to remember right now. She gives him a concerned glance and he averts his eyes. He doesn’t want people to ask him questions. Instead, he leans back into Coulson’s couch and lets the noise of everyone’s excited banter wash over him, trying to ignore the deep ache he feels in the pit of his chest.

“She’s fine, Clint,” Coulson tells him a half hour later when he’s checking his phone for the seventeenth time. “It’s not like she hasn’t missed check-in before. She’s always fine.”

“I don’t know what definitions you’re working with, but escaping from the KGB with a knife in her thigh doesn’t constitute ‘fine’ in my book. Neither does freezing to death in the middle of fucking Kazakhstan. Or the time she came back from Kiev with two stab wounds and internal bleeding. Can you blame me for being worried, Phil?”

“She’ll come back. She always does.”

“But what if she doesn’t? What if this time something’s really wrong and I can’t be there for her?”

“You know the drill,” Coulson says gently. “48 hours of radio silence and we go in there and bring her home. Until then, we give her time and hope she can finish the job and get back in touch with us. We’d do the same thing if it were you over there.”

“Romanoff’s tough,” Hill comments from her perch on the piano bench. “She’s made it out of worse than this and you know it. Don’t worry about her.”

“He’s been worrying about her since she came to SHIELD,” Sitwell says jokingly. “He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he stopped.” Clint chucks a bottle cap at his head and Sitwell takes his clue, heading to the kitchen to help himself to another beer from the fridge.  

Hill leaves the bench and crosses the room to sit next to Clint on the couch. Her hand on his forearm is warm and steady. “I know you care about her. But I also know that she cares about you. And I know she’s going to fight like hell to get back to you if that’s what she needs to do.”

Clint lets a small smile escape. It feels all wrong, to be smiling when she’s in the middle of God knows what and she could be dead for all he knows, but Hill’s right. He has to believe that she’s right.

“I’m going to go help Coulson with the turkey,” she tells him, giving his arm a squeeze. “Try not to beat yourself up too much.” He nods absently as she leaves him alone in the living room.

Unsurprisingly, being alone with his thoughts doesn’t help. At some point everyone trickles back into the living room, talking and laughing because this is the one day they can be (mostly) carefree. Coulson hands him another beer and he accepts it gratefully, chugging half the thing in one go because it numbs the pain a little. He’s on the couch with his head in his hands silently begging to be ignored when the door opens and a gust of frigid air blow in. He doesn’t care. And then he does because it’s _her_ voice that’s speaking. But she’s not here. She’s in Iraq.

“Sorry I missed my check-in,” she says, hugging Maria Hill. “I took the first flight out of Baghdad so I could get here and it turns out that whole ‘turn your phones off in the air’ thing isn’t just a load of bullshit. Merry Christmas.”

She’s in Coulson’s arms next. “Welcome home,” he says sincerely. He knows Natasha well enough to know what home means for her, and that this gathering of misfit SHIELD agents is the closest thing to a family she’s ever had.

Every eye in the room is on Clint and he knows it. But only two of them matter. She’s standing before him with snowflakes in her hair and cheeks flushed pink from the cold and she’s so beautiful it hurts. He doesn’t think he’s ever loved her more than in this moment. “Hey,” she says softly, when he doesn’t move. “Merry Christmas.”

He’s on his feet before he can remember deciding to stand. The world melts away and all that matters is her and he doesn’t care that people are staring because he needs to feel her in his arms. When he kisses her it’s not hard and fast and everything it usually is when one of them returns from a solo mission. Instead it’s slow and gentle and _home_ and she melts into him like they’ve always been one. She presses her face into his shoulder and he tightens his arms around her and presses his lips to the top of her head and they stay like that for what feels like an eternity, but still not long enough.

He can feel her shaking slightly and at first he thinks she’s crying, but then he realizes that she’s laughing. It’s a soft laugh, more out of relief than anything else and he laughs with her, relief crashing over him like a flood. Relief that she’s home, because _this_ is home, the two of them together, regardless of where they are. Relief that for this one moment, everything is right in the world.

He knows everyone’s staring. They’re not used to public displays of affection like this, not from him and most certainly not from Natasha, who would rather face the entire KGB alone than admit to being anything but heartless. He knows everyone is staring and as he feels Natasha smile into his shoulder, their audience is the last thing he cares about. And then Coulson elbows him in the ribs and says that dinner’s ready and they’d better come quickly or else there won’t be any food left.

He holds her hand all through dinner. He’s not ready to let go yet.

Later, when they’ve all eaten more than they probably should, Natasha curls up on the couch next to Clint, resting her head on his shoulder as they listen to Sitwell give an animated recollection about his most recent undercover stint in Guam.

“Tired?” he asks her quietly as he notices her eyelids flutter closed.

She nods into his shoulder.

He laces his fingers through hers. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

Her fingers tighten around his as she says, “I am home.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry that this is way later in the day than I usually post. My computer crashed and I had the chapter finished but it was stuck on the comptuer and couldn't get off. (Along with half of my thesis and my eight-page lab writeup. Today's been a trip.)   
> So anyways, I just managed to get everything working again and I know this is wayyy shorter than usual but I promise I'll make it up to you guys next week. Thanks for sticking with me even though I suck! <3

They stumble through the empty SHIELD hallways like they’re drunk on each other. Natasha stops only to kick off her shoes before collapsing on Clint’s bed, exhausted from her travel back from Iraq. Clint crawls into bed with her not long after, pulling the covers gently over top of her sleeping form. She shifts towards him in her sleep, pressing her forehead into his chest, and he smiles into the darkness as he drifts off to sleep with Natasha in his arms. Safe. Home.

 ***

 _Warm_ is the first thing Natasha feels when she wakes in the morning. _Safe_ is the second. _Home_ is the third. She inhales deeply and feels Clint’s arms tighten around her. “Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey,” she whispers back.

“I missed you,” he says softly, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. His voice is full of raw honesty. They have nothing to hide from each other anymore.

“I love you,” she says, just as softly.

“I know.”

“I know that you know. Sometimes I need to hear myself say it. I need to remember that it’s true.”

Clint shifts forward slightly, pressing his forehead against hers. “Tell me something else that’s true.”

She laughs quietly and it’s like music and Clint wants to ask her to do it again and again because his heart is aching with how much he’s missed that sound. “That’s my line, Barton.”

“I know. Tell me anyways.”

“I was never a dancer.” Her voice is sad now, nostalgic. “The memories were fake, implanted in my mind by the Red Room. I never knew. There’s so much about myself I still don’t know. Sometimes I have trouble remembering what’s real.”

He runs a hand lightly down her spine. “This is real. Tell me something else.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand why you love me.”

“Sometimes it’s not easy. But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it? You don’t really get a choice.”

“What if you had a choice?” She sounds so vulnerable that Clint’s heart breaks for her. He hates that even after everything they’ve been through together, she still has to question his love for her.

He brushes his thumb across her trembling lips. “I would still choose you. Every time.”

Natasha closes her eyes as she leans into him, pressing her face into his shoulder. Clint can feel her shaking slightly and as he pulls her closer to him, she remembers Kazakhstan. She remembers Budapest. She remembers every night that his arms around her were the only thing that kept her from falling apart. She remembers other arms; weak, strong, cruel, cold metal, and she presses herself closer to Clint, silently begging him to erase from her skin the memory of every touch that isn’t his.

“I have something for you,” he remembers suddenly, reaching around her to open the top drawer in his bedside table. “It was meant to be for your birthday but I didn’t know when you’d be back from Iraq and…well…” he trails off, handing her a small box.

Natasha’s breath catches in her throat as she removes the lid and sees the small silver arrow nestled inside. “Oh, Clint.”

“I didn’t want to make assumptions,” he says quietly, avoiding her gaze. “But consider it a promise.”

“A promise,” she repeats.

“Yeah. A promise that no matter where we are, no matter how bad things seem, I’ll always come back. I’ll always come back to you, Natasha.”

“You shouldn’t make promises like that,” she whispers, turning the arrow over in her hands. “Our lives aren’t made for promises like that.”

Clint takes the chain from her hands gently, pushing back her hair so he can fasten it around her neck. “Does that scare you?”

“Sometimes,” she whispers. “Sometimes I think I’m not afraid of anything anymore. Sometimes I remember that I’m terrified.”

“Everyone’s afraid of something.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Losing control. Hurting you. Losing you.”

“That won’t happen.” There’s fire in her voice and her eyes are blazing with determination and Clint can’t help but think about how different she is from the girl he almost shot in Poland. Her desire to die has been replaced by something even stronger; the will to live. He likes to think it’s because she finally has something to live for. “What are you thinking about?” she asks, and he swears she can read his mind.

“Warsaw,” he answers.

“I don’t want to go back there.” He sees the emotion flicker through her eyes and he knows she doesn’t mean physically.

“Don’t,” he tells her simply. “Stay here.”

 ***

“Fury’s sending me to Russia,” Natasha says conversationally. Clint’s just gotten back from training to find her sitting on his couch with her legs draped over the armrest, reading through a stack of mission objectives. It’s so natural to see her there that he doesn’t even think twice about it. Natasha’s SHIELD apartment is hers only in name. She hasn’t slept there since before she shipped out to Iraq, and somehow almost all her belongings (which aren’t much) have migrated over to Clint’s place. For a while they tried to keep up the pretense of living in separate apartments, but somewhere along the line they both stopped caring. Neither of them have anything to prove.

“And you’re okay with that?”

She nods slowly. “I think so. Besides, it’s easier for him to send me.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to go.”

“I have a job, Clint.”

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am,” she says, quieter. “But thank you. You’re the only one who’s ever really cared.”

“That’s not true. Fury cares. Coulson cares. Even Hill cares, and she doesn’t like most people. More people care about you than you think, Nat.”

She smiles softly at him. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine. Really.”

“When do you leave?”

“Too soon.”

Clint sighs. “Figures. You just got back.”

“I know. Maybe we can convince Coulson to give us some vacation time when I’m done infiltrating the mafia.”

“You know, retiring is sounding more and more appealing every day.”

“You’d hate retirement. Too boring.”

“Yeah, like you’d know. Have you ever taken a day off in your life?”

“Yes, actually. I hated it.”

“Bullshit.”

“Oh,” she says, remembering. “Coulson wanted to see you. Something about some weird piece of alien tech at the New Mexico base.”

“Great. Alien tech. My favourite. Can I at least eat first?”

Natasha grins at him. “Go see Coulson. We can eat after.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, offering her a mock salute as he heads back out the door.

 ***

“It’s called the Tesseract,” he tells her later over the pizza they ordered in because they were both too lazy to cook. “And as far as I know, it does nothing. But they want me to guard it or something.”

Natasha shrugs. “Maybe it’s important.”

“And _maybe_ SHIELD’s playing a game of ‘where are we going to send Barton to make him feel useful while Romanoff’s off saving the world?’”

“Clint.”

“I miss being your partner, Nat.”

“We’re still partners. Us working separate missions doesn’t make me any less your partner than I was before. But sometimes I’m going to be in Russia while you’re in New Mexico. That’s just the way it is.”

“I know. It’s just that everything sucks so much less when you’re here.”

“You know Barton, that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Should I write that down so you can read it when you’re feeling lonely in Russia?”

She punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Watch it.”

“If you’re going to fight me can you at least let me finish my pizza first?”

“Fine,” she sighs, but they’re both smiling. They need more nights like this, Clint thinks. Nights where they can order pizza and argue over who has better taste in wine and find a small shred of normalcy to share, even if it’s only for a little while.

But it ends, as it always does for people like them.

 ***

“I need you to come in,” Natasha knows what Coulson’s voice on the other end of the line means. There’s only one reason he would call her when she’s supposed to be infiltrating the Russian mafia. Only one reason he’d pull her out of such an important mission and tell her to get back to New York. There’s only one thing that’s more important that her mission and he knows it. _Clint._

She pretends to not understand. “Are you kidding me? I’m working!” Deep down, she knows. She thinks that maybe if she ignores it for long enough, it’ll go away. Maybe this is all just a sick joke, or a nightmare. Maybe she needs to tell herself that because she doesn’t want to believe it’s possible.

But she knows. She remembers. She was there in Coulson’s office when Clint put his foot down and said that the solo missions weren’t allowed to continue unless he knew without a doubt that Natasha was safe. She remembers Coulson’s sincerity when he promised that if anything ever went wrong, he wouldn’t hesitate to pull either of them out of the field. She knows that Coulson knows that there’s only one thing she’d ever go home for. _Clint_.

“Natasha.” It’s Coulson’s voice in her ear again and she wants to scream at him to stop because this can’t be happening, it _can’t_ , but it is, and she’s still tied to a chair and there’s people watching her and she can’t allow herself to break now. She’ll break later when she’s on an airplane headed to New York, when she’s walking down the SHIELD hallways alone not knowing what to expect, when the inevitable finally happens and she has to face _alone_ for the first time since Warsaw.

  _I’ll always come back to you, Natasha._ Her eyes burn with unshed tears as she realizes how right she was when she told him not to make that promise. But the arrow burns too, tucked under her dress over top of her heart where it belongs. It burns with a promise that she made herself. A promise that, in the event that he couldn’t come back, she would find him. _I’ll always find you. I’ll always bring you home._

“Barton’s been compromised.”

So, she thinks. This is how it ends. Or rather, how it begins.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know it's like three days before I'm due to update but I got REALLY excited about this chapter and it kept distracting me to the point where I couldn't get any actual real (school) work done until I wrote it. So here it is.
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone who's been taking the time to read and review. You guys are the bomb and you legitimately keep me so motivated. I think what I'm trying to get at here is that it's really nice to know that people are actually reading what I write. ;)
> 
> ALSO, feel free to come talk to me on [tumblr](http://daughter-of-rohan.tumblr.com/) anytime! (I promise I don't bite.)

_Barton’s been compromised._ Calcutta passes in a haze. So does the flight back to SHIELD. And then she’s sitting in a room with all of Fury’s misfits and they’re talking about Clint like he’s just another field agent. Like he’s expendable. _You don’t know him,_ she wants to scream.

She reaches into the pocket of her suit, choking back a sob as her fingers brush against the arrow. _Consider it a promise_. She can’t break here, not in front of these people who know her as the brutal Soviet spy; one of SHIELD’s biggest assets. They’ve never seen _Natasha_ , the one who reads children’s stories in different languages because she can, the one who puts cream and sugar in her coffee because it tastes better that way, the one who brushed up on sign language so that _someone_ at SHIELD could communicate with and translate for her deaf partner. They don’t know the girl who sits on the windowsill and watches the rain fall and lets her tears fall with it because the sound stirs up something painful deep in her soul. No, these people know her as cold and calculating and bitter, so that’s what she’ll be.

They’re here to track down the Tesseract and send Loki back to Asgard. She lets them think that that’s her mission too. There’s no need to explain that she’s here for an entirely different reason. Natasha knows she doesn’t belong in this room full of superheroes and demi-gods. She’s not here to save the world. She’s here to save a life. One life. The rest can go to hell, for all she cares. Or at least that’s what she tries to tell herself, because it’s never really that simple.

 ***

She agrees to interrogate Loki because she’s the best. If anyone can get the information they need, it’s Natasha. She doesn’t tell anyone about her ulterior motive until she’s standing in front of Loki’s cell and she can’t hide it anymore. _”Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man?”_

“Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that. I’m Russian. Or, I was.” She remembers days, weeks, _months_ even after Clint brought her in wandering the halls in a state of perpetual numbness because she didn’t know who or what to be. She remembers him telling her that it was up to her to figure it out.

It isn’t hard to pretend that Loki’s getting to her. It’s impossible, once he says one of the few words that still has the power to break her beyond repair. _“Is this love, Agent Romanoff?”_

It is. Of course it is. She thinks maybe it always has been. For the first time she can remember, she voluntarily allows her mind to stray back to Warsaw. The look in his eyes when he told her he wasn’t going to kill her. The way he took care of her after she almost bled to death. How he made her promise not to lie to him when he asked her how she was feeling. How fiercely protective he was of her when everyone at SHIELD was glaring daggers at her because of the crimes she’d committed. The gentle way he kissed her on the floor of her apartment. The way he held her in Kazakhstan so she wouldn’t freeze to death. Every touch, every word, every look, every smile. Yes, this is love. But Loki can’t know that. So she lies through her teeth as she tells him the words she was conditioned to believe as a child, the words that haunted her nightmares for the first twenty-one years of her life.

“Love is for children. I owe him a debt.” _I owe him more than you could ever know_.

 ***

Fear is being chased by the Hulk along the narrow walkways of the Helicarrier. Fear is being trapped, unable to move, unable to scream for help, unable to do anything except hope that somehow there’s a way out. Fear is looking death in the eyes and saying _not today._

_“Does anybody copy?”_

“This is Agent Romanoff. I copy.”

Fear is looking into the eyes of a partner who doesn’t recognize her face.

 ***

It ends like it began. She’s his mission. This time, however, there’s no compassion. Their fight is brutal, lacking all the lethal grace they usually spar with. Natasha struggles for control as she looks into the ice-blue eyes she doesn’t recognize; glares with hatred at the monster who’s stolen the face of the man she loves.

_Love is for children._

He brings the knife towards her throat and she knows he won’t hold back but today her life is not his to take. It’s Warsaw all over again and she’s staring death in the face but she’s never felt more alive. She throws his head at the railing and he falls and then he’s looking up at her in confusion and she could end it right now. But she can’t. She has to believe that he’s in there somewhere. _I’ll always come back to you._

“Tasha?”

She burns with hatred at the fact that Loki is using even this name against her. The name she gave Clint in a moment of trust so intimate it pains her to think about it. The name that can break her beyond repair. She swings her fist with a savage force and watches as her partner falls to the ground.

“I’m sorry, Clint,” she whispers, even though she knows he can’t hear her. “I’m so sorry.”

The tears will come later. For now, she tries not to let herself feel.

 ***

She’s still emotionally raw from the encounter with Loki when Clint comes to, and she’s not ready to tell him how Loki threatened to use him against her. _Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear_. So when Clint asks her what Loki did to her, she tells him as much of the truth as she can bear to say. “I’ve been compromised.” He nods because he understands better than anyone.

_Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?_   It's all she knows.

 ***

Then comes the battle. Emotions and feelings and love threaten to break her, but battle is something she can understand. When they’re side by side in the street, surrounded by gunfire and fighting for their lives, she says _Budapest_ to gauge his reaction. When he jokes back about them remembering Budapest differently she wants to cry with relief because it means he’s back. It might not be for good, but for now at least, the man she’s fighting with is her partner.

 ***

Clint doesn’t miss the uneasy looks they give him when he follows everyone to the shawarma place Tony’s been talking about it. He’s not sure what Natasha’s told them about him, not sure if they know anything besides the fact that he’s her partner. All they know is that he killed a lot of people under Loki’s influence and that’s not something people forget quickly. Natasha’s words don’t make it any better. _This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for._ So he says nothing and ignores everyone except Natasha, holding her eyes with his and refusing to let go. It’s the only communication he’ll allow himself here, because the things he wants to say to her are too personal to say in front of people he doesn’t know. She looks so young and vulnerable as she leans back against the leg he has propped up on her chair. The urge to protect her fiercely grips him again just like it has hundreds of times before. She’s small and broken and tired and yet she’s the strongest person he’s ever known and he doesn’t know anything except that he loves her.

They’re tired and injured and emotionally raw from the battle. There’s a gaping hole in Clint’s heart called _Coulson_. He didn’t cry when Natasha told him. Tears will come later, but for now he just feels numb. He blames himself, if he’s honest. Mostly, he tries not to think about the fact that there’s only one person left in the whole world, hell, the whole _universe_ that he’d trust with his life. It hits him like a bullet in the gut, it’s like losing a father. Or at least, he thinks it might be. He doesn’t even remember losing his father.

It’s Tony who finally breaks the silence as they’re leaving the restaurant. “Look, I’m not sure where you guys were planning on going, but come back to the tower tonight. There’s enough room for all of you.”

Clint looks at Natasha, a question in his eyes. “ _Together?”"_ he signs, because he doesn’t want to ask her out loud where people can hear.

She nods. “Okay.”

Natasha’s silent as she climbs into the passenger seat, staring straight ahead as Clint starts the car and drives off in the direction of Stark tower. He glances over at her out of the corner of his eye and sees her arms folded across her chest, sees the knot of confusion in her forehead and the raw pain and hurt in the lines of her body. He wants to reach out and touch her. He needs to hold her; his body aches for her, but she’s staring ahead looking untouchable so he keeps his eyes on the road and tries to ignore the voices in the back of his mind telling him it’s his fault that she’s hurting.

“Nat,” he begins. Her eyes flick over to him briefly and he trails off, not sure what he can say to her.

“We don’t need to talk about it.”

“We do.”

“We do,” she agrees. “But not yet.” They fall back into a silence that’s slightly less uncomfortable than before, but there’s still pain and fear that runs deeper and they’re going to have to deal with it eventually. Eventually. But not yet.

 ***

Tony presses the tenth floor button when they all crowd into the elevator and they ride up in silence. “There’s enough rooms for everyone,” he says once they all step out of the elevator into a warmly lit living room. “Kitchen’s that way,” he continues, nodding to the left. “I guess, uh, let me know if you need anything,” he finishes awkwardly.

“Your hospitality is appreciated,” Thor says solemnly.

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly, looking at his feet. “Thanks, Tony.”

Clint feels Natasha step up beside him and slip a small hand into his. She tugs gently and he lets her lead him as he stumbles along behind, past caring if anyone’s watching. She chooses a room at random, kicking the door shut behind them. Clint watches her carefully as she sinks onto the bed, head in her hands.

“What’s the damage?” he asks her. It’s their post-mission ritual after all, and anything they need to talk about can wait until he’s sure that neither of them is going to bleed to death.

“Sprained ankle and a few cracked ribs,” she says flatly.

He stretches a hand out towards her and then hesitates. “Can I…?”

She nods. He unzips her suit with gentle hands, pulling it down to her waist. “Tash,” he chokes out when he sees the bruises covering the right side of her ribcage.

“I’ve had worse.”

Clint shakes his head because that’s not what he meant. They both know she’s had worse. “I did this,” he whispers, hating himself.

“No.” The fire in her voice could kill him. The fire in her voice could save him. “It wasn’t you.”

“Natasha-“

She cuts him off firmly. “Stop, Clint. I will not let you blame yourself.” Her voice softens as she asks him, “Where are you hurt?”

He shakes his head. “Let me take care of you first.”

Natasha lets him tape her ribs and wrap her ankle. His hands are impossibly gentle and she knows he’s trying to make up for hurting her earlier. She grabs his arm as he moves to put the first aid kit away. “Your turn.”

“I’m fine.”

“Clint, you went through a window.”

“I mean it, Tash. I’m okay.”

“I know you think you deserve to suffer right now,” Natasha tells him, her voice soft. “But you’re not doing anyone any good by letting yourself be in pain.”

Clint drags the back of his hand across his eyes, brushing away the tears he can feel forming. He doesn’t deserve this. He deserves to be alone and in pain and feeling sorry for himself like the piece of shit he is. And yet Natasha still trusts him enough to show him the soft, gentle side of herself that no one else gets to see. He wants to tell her it’s a mistake, but at the same time he craves her trust like a drug. He needs to know that there’s one thing he hasn’t fucked up.

She strips him of his shirt quickly and efficiently and gets to work with a pair of tweezers, pulling bloody shards of glass out of his back. He relaxes into her touch as she trails her fingertips gently down his spine.

“Tash.”

“Mmm?

“I tried to kill you.”

Her hands still. “That wasn’t you, Clint.”

“I would have killed you, Tash.”

“I wouldn’t have let you.”

“Tell me something true.”

“You’re not a monster.”

“Something else.”

“You’re not broken.”

“Something else.”

“I thought I’d lost you,” she chokes out.

“You’re never going to lose me, Natasha. I made you a promise, remember?”

“What good are promises, Clint?” she asks him in a broken whisper. “In light of everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve done, what does a promise mean?”

“Come here,” he says roughly. Her ribs throb painfully as he pulls her into his arms but she doesn’t care. It’s been so long since she’s felt safe and warm and alive and anything but alone and she clings to him desperately, silently begging him to shield her from her nightmares because she’s not sure how much longer she can stay awake and she knows exactly what she’ll see when she closes her eyes. Exhaustion crashes over her like a wave and she can’t keep her head above water any longer. Clint presses a kiss to her forehead and his whisper is the last thing she hears before she drifts off into nothingness.

“It means everything.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I'd like to apologize for my lateness in posting. I hope the wait was worth it. (Who am I kidding, I made myself cry writing this. Read at your own risk.)
> 
> If you want to drown in feelings, I'd recommend listening to the song Again by NeedToBreathe. (Actual tears, guys. Actual tears.)
> 
> And once again thank you so much for your continued support and also shoutout to the bros who came and said hi to me on tumblr this week. You guys make my day so much better every time you talk to me. :)
> 
> Enjoy! <3 (Don't hate me?)

_“I won’t touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you. Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear. And then he’ll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I’ll split his skull.”_

_Ice-blue eyes bore into her and she’s trapped just like she was in the bowels of the Helicarrier when the Hulk was chasing her. His knife moves towards her throat and she doesn’t know if she can stop it this time, doesn’t know if she wants to stop it. She thinks maybe it’s easier if she lets this end the way it was always supposed to._

_“Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?”_

_***_

A scream tears its way out of Natasha’s throat as she wakes, her body jerking so hard that she falls from the bed and lands hard on the floor, pain shooting through her broken ribs. She’s shaking and she can’t breathe and the world is spinning around her and the only thing she can see is blue, ice blue. _Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?_

“Tasha.” Clint’s voice is rough from sleep and so familiar, it sounds like _home_ , but she can’t help but think that that’s just another lie. She doesn’t have a home. Maybe she had one once. Not anymore. _Love is for children._ “Tasha,” he says more insistently, kneeling in front of her and gripping her forearms tightly, forcing her to look into his eyes. Eyes that are absent of the disconcerting icy blue colour that spells death and destruction. “You’re okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

She lets out a dry sob and he crushes her to him and as she presses her face into his chest and inhales the scent of him she tries to convince herself that it’s true, that she’s okay. That _they’re_ okay. But they’re not and she knows it and as her body shakes with rough, violent sobs he whispers in her ear in English, in Russian, in any language he can think of, because it’s not the words that matter. He talks until his voice is hoarse as her shaking gradually subsides. “You’re safe, Tasha,” he whispers as exhaustion claims her once again and she drifts back into an uneasy sleep. “Nobody’s going to hurt you here. You’re safe with me.”

Once her breathing slows, Clint lifts her in his arms as gently as he’d lift a child. Laying her gently back in bed, he pulls a blanket over her sleeping form and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep, baby girl.” He brushes a thumb across her cheekbone as her eyelids twitch. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you.” He knows she can’t hear him but it doesn’t matter, because she isn’t the one he needs to convince.

 ***

Clint isn’t surprised to find Tony in the lab. He’d be naïve to think that he and Natasha are the only ones who can’t sleep tonight. Tony looks up as Clint enters, raising an eyebrow. A question.

“I need you to hack into the video footage from the Helicarrier.”

“You want me to hack SHIELD?”

“Did I fucking stutter?”

Tony smirks. “You and I both know I have no moral code, bird boy. But if I’m going to hack SHIELD, you’re going to tell me why.”

“Loki said something to Natasha when she was interrogating him. I don’t know what it was and she won’t tell me and I…” Clint takes a deep breath, sighs loudly. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’m worried about her, Stark. If he did something to her, if he hurt her, I need to know. She’s my partner.”

Tony nods and turns away, swiping his fingers over the keyboard of some futuristic-looking computer. Clint stands in the doorway holding his breath, unsure if he should take Tony’s silence as confirmation that he’s going to help. Finally, when he’s stood there in silence for too long and is about to turn and leave and consider the attempt failed, Tony speaks. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, bird boy.”

“Don’t call me that,” Clint says automatically, hearing Natasha in his own voice. He steps nervously towards the computer as Tony presses another button and Loki’s face comes up on screen. Clint can’t help the way his body tenses, every part of his brain screaming _run_ , run away from those ice-blue eyes that spell death and destruction of everything he loves.

Clint flinches as Loki’s voice seems to fill the lab. _“I won’t touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you. Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear.”_ He grips the edge of the counter so hard that his knuckles go white. He remembers the fear he saw briefly in Natasha’s eyes when he was trying to talk her down from her nightmares. No wonder she’s terrified of him, she has every right to be.

“Shit,” Clint whispers quietly to himself.

“You’re telling me,” a voice responds, and Clint remembers Tony.

“ _Shit_ ,” he repeats, turning on his heel and stalking out of the lab without a second thought. At first he thinks he walked into the wrong bedroom when he sees the bed empty, but Natasha’s discarded suit catches his eye and he leaves the room again, hoping he knows her as well as he thinks he does.

Sure enough, he finds her curled up on the large windowsill of the living room, clutching a mug of tea like a lifeline. He’s struck once again by how young she looks. Young and lost and vulnerable. She doesn’t belong in this world of monsters and magic and death and lies and violence. _I did this_ , he thinks. _I’m sorry. I love you. I never wanted to see you broken._

“I wish we could see the stars,” she whispers as he sits down across from her. She doesn’t look at him, instead continuing to stare out the window like the sky itself holds the answers she’s searching for.

“Natasha.”

“What are we supposed to do, Clint?” Her voice is raw, tortured. It’s the voice of someone who’s seen too much in too short a time.

He sighs deeply. “I don’t know. Coulson would know.”

“Yeah,” she says softly. Her eyes are shining with tears when she finally looks up at him. “I miss him, Clint. I keep expecting him to walk through the door to brief us on some mission or give us shit for not turning in paperwork and then I remember that he’s gone, really gone. He was one of the only ones who was never scared of me, never saw me as the monster I thought I was.” Her voice breaks and the tears spill over. “He made me want to be a better person.”

“I know,” Clint says brokenly. “I know.”

She stands, reaching out to take his hand in hers. “Come on. Let’s go back to bed.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to close my eyes, Nat. Not again.”

He looks like death. Like he hasn’t slept in days. For all Natasha knows, he hasn’t. Did Loki let Clint sleep while he was controlling his mind? Did he let him eat? His face is thinner than she remembers and there’s dark circles under his eyes and his hands are shaking and she knows he needs rest. But she also knows what it’s like to be afraid of what she’ll see when she closes her eyes. “You need to rest, Clint. Please. Come to bed.”

For the second time that night, they walk hand in hand down the hallway. They tumble into bed, falling into each other because they don’t know how to be apart any more. For the second time that night, Natasha drifts to sleep in Clint’s arms, but he can’t sleep, he _won’t_ sleep, because he’s afraid of what he’ll become when his eyes close. He can feel his partner shaking slightly in his arms, can see her eyelids fluttering rapidly, and he knows she’s dreaming.

All of a sudden, he can’t stand it anymore. He can’t stand that the woman asleep in his arms, so _trusting_ , is the same woman he was ready to kill. He can’t stand the images still fresh in his mind of him forcing his knife towards her throat, and worst of all, the sick sense of _pleasure_ in the pit of his stomach. _Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear._ Natasha can say what she likes about him not blaming himself, but it’s his fault that Loki knew all her secrets, _his_ fault that Loki knew exactly what he had to say to break her.

 _I stopped keeping score._ It was true, once. He’d told her back in Budapest, back when the pain of her past had still been a raw, gaping wound. Back when they’d shared stories of scars and torn themselves apart so they could put each other back together again. But the names in his ledger are too close this time, too personal, and he thinks he might be keeping score for the rest of his life. All he knows is there’s too much blood on his hands and he doesn’t want Natasha to be just another name in his ledger. It doesn’t matter that she’s here alive, in his arms, because in his dreams she dies every time.

Finally, he can’t take it anymore. He slips out of bed silently, the loss of Natasha’s warmth hitting him like a punch in the stomach. He wants to crawl back into bed and hold her and never let go but he tells himself it’s better this way. He grabs a scrap of paper from the desk and hastily scrawls a few words, leaves the note on the bedside table where he knows she’ll find it. He presses a lingering kiss to Natasha’s forehead, smiling slightly at the way she lifts her face up towards him, even in her sleep. And then he makes himself turn away. He hates himself as he walks away from her. Every promise he’s ever made her echoes in his mind with each footstep. _I’ll never leave you. I’ll always come back to you._ He remembers her telling him that he shouldn’t make promises like that. He wishes he could tell her how right she was.

As he leaves the room without looking back, Clint makes a new promise. _I’ll always love you. No matter where I am, no matter where you are, I’ll never stop loving you. Home will always be wherever I’m with you._

He closes the door as quietly as possible so he won’t wake Natasha, and when he turns he’s face to face with Steve. _Shit._

“Hey,” Steve says quietly. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Clint shakes his head mutely and makes to head down the hallway, but Steve stops him.

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk,” he lies. “I’ll be back.”

 ***

Natasha wakes alone again, but something feels wrong about it this time. She’s used to Clint being gone sometimes, in the middle of the night when he tries to walk off his nightmares because he doesn’t want to wake her up. Sometimes when they’re back at base, she’ll find him on the roof at three in the morning because he can think more clearly when he’s closer to the sky.

This is different. It’s morning and the sun is creeping through the window and the bed beside her is empty and there’s an uneasiness settling in the pit of her stomach. She feels like she’s on the edge of a precipice, on the edge of the roof back in Afghanistan, staring at the ground and wondering if she’ll fly or fall.

A folded paper on the bedside table catches her eye and she reaches out slowly, nervously. She considers leaving it closed, considers ignoring it and pretending not to care and putting on a brave face to show the world. God knows she’s been doing it long enough. She considers leaving it closed and knows she can’t.

 

_Tasha-_

_A thousand apologies wouldn’t be enough. I hurt you and the last thing I want is your blood on my hands. I’ll come home when I stop keeping score._

_-Clint_

 

There’s no tears. Instead it’s the numbness that haunted her back in her first days at SHIELD. She crushes Clint’s note in her fist. _Gone._ Just like everything else she’s ever loved. _Love is for children._ She’d thought she was lying when she said that to Loki. _I’ll come home when I stop keeping score._ She hates the idea of Clint reopening his ledger after Budapest, when he told her he had nothing left to make right. She reaches under her pillow for a knife that isn’t there. She can’t cry. She can’t breathe. She can’t _feel_.

 ***

The gym in Stark Tower is in the basement and, thankfully, empty. Natasha beats a punching bag until her knuckles start bleeding and there, with blood running down both arms, is where the tears finally come. The sobs wrack her entire body and her vision is so blurry she can’t see but she doesn’t stop pummeling the bag in front of her with all the force she can muster.

She doesn’t stop, that is, until strong arms pull her backwards so that her swings are coming in contact with nothing but air. She twists sharply and feels her elbow come in contact with something hard, hears a grunt from behind her, but the arms don’t release her.

“Natasha.” It’s Steve. “I’ll let you go when you promise me that you’re going to stop hurting yourself.”

She opens her mouth and nothing comes out but a strangled cry, and then Steve is turning her around, crushing her to his chest as she lets her tears fall freely. He lets her cry until she can’t anymore, until she goes limp with exhaustion against his chest, and then he lowers her gently to the ground, helping her lean against the wall while he gets the first aid kit from the back of the door.

“Let me see your hands.”

She hesitates. In all her years at SHIELD, Clint has been the only one who ever patched her up after a mission. Her injuries, her scars, her broken bones, they’re all his. Sharing them with Steve feels like a betrayal of his trust. And then she remembers that she’s still here and he’s disappeared to God knows where, that his betrayal is worse.

“Natasha.” Steve extends a hand to her slowly like he’s trying to comfort an injured animal. “Please. Let me help you.”

Steve’s hands are gentle. Too gentle. She hates that he touches her like she’s fragile. She hates that he looks at her with concern in his eyes, hates that he cares. She doesn’t want anyone to care anymore. He doesn’t speak as he calmly bandages her knuckles; some bruised, some bloody, some broken. She doesn’t comment on the pain, and he doesn’t ask.

“What happened?” he finally asks as he’s closing the lid on the first aid kit.

Natasha tries to keep her voice steady. “Banner’s not the only one with anger management issues.”

“To you,” Steve clarifies. “What happened to you?”

She nods towards her pocket because her bandaged hands can’t fit inside, and Steve reaches in carefully, pulling out Clint’s note. His eyes darken as they scan the page. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll find him, Natasha.”

“Not if he doesn’t want to be found.”

“You know him better than anyone else. Tony can hack virtually anything. There’s five of us and one of him. I promise you, we’ll find him.”

“Do me a favour,” she says quietly, “and don’t make any promises.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major shout out to the snowstorm that cancelled classes for being the only reason I'm posting this on time. (Writer's block is real and among us.) I've been starting to think about wrapping this story up. Don't freak out, I have every intention of writing a sequel, but the story that I intended to tell when I began this is almost over. At most there will be one more chapter (maybe two) before this is over, but I am in no way done with these two or this storyline and I'm fully intending to continue into a sequel. (This is just getting really long which I didn't expect because I didn't even think anybody would read past like, chapter 1.) (Also I hope the people who told me they wanted this story to never end were being sarcastic.)
> 
> As always, thank you all so much for sticking with me (I honestly can't believe people are STILL reading this), and PLEASE continue to let me know what you think! (I'm also open to plot/story suggestions now that this is wrapping up so if there's something you want to see either comment here or shoot me a message on [tumblr](http://daughter-of-rohan.tumblr.com/).)
> 
> You guys are the best and I really hope this week's chapter doesn't disappoint. <3

“I’ve got nothing,” Tony says, frustrated.

Steve isn’t buying it. “Look harder.”

“I’m telling you, Rogers, if bird boy was out there I would have _found him by now_.”

“He _is_ out there!” Steve shouts, exasperated. “Do you really expect me to believe he just disappeared off the face of the Earth?”

“Well that’s what it’s looking like right now,” Tony says, slamming a fist down on the keyboard. “ _Damn_ it!”

“There is nothing to be gained from anger,” says Thor. Tony pointedly ignores him.

Natasha’s sitting curled up in a chair by the window, as if she can disappear by making herself smaller. Her face is an impassive mask despite her inner turmoil. Not wanting to show weakness is futile at this point and she knows that, especially after she broke down in front of Steve in the gym. But her emotions are the only thing she has control over now. (He taught her that, taught her how to control her emotions and come to terms with what she’s feeling.) So she puts on a brave face. It’s a cracked façade and everyone in the room can see right through it; they all have their own demons and their own masks, their own secrets and lies. Nobody says anything though, because they all know what it’s like to want to hide the fact that you’re broken.

Bruce approaches her slowly, holding out a mug like a peace offering. She accepts it silently, inhaling the scent of the tea.

Bruce is shy, timid, unsure of himself as he asks her, “Are you okay?”

Natasha doesn’t answer. She’s obsessing over the fact that Clint is gone, gone so far off the map that even _Tony_ can’t find him. But then again, Tony doesn’t know him. She’s the only one who really knows him and he knows that. If anyone was going to find him it would be her, but she feels lost.

“He didn’t leave you a clue or anything?” Tony asks for the umpteenth time. She ignores him too.

He left her nothing but a letter. A letter and a broken promise. Natasha pulls the crumpled paper out of her pocket as if reading it for the eleventh time will unearth some sort of hidden message. _I’ll come home when I stop keeping score._ When she’d first read it, she’d thought of Clint reopening his ledger. But what if that’s not what he’d meant. What if that itself was a clue, a map guiding her back to the last place she’d ever think to look for him. The place where it all began. The place where he stopped keeping score, although he hadn’t told her at the time.

“Warsaw,” she says out loud. Four pairs of eyes bore into her.

“Natasha?” Steve breaks the silence.

“He’s in Warsaw.”

“How do you know?” Tony asks, skeptical.

“I don’t have time to explain. I need you to trust me.” She grips the mug in her hands tightly. “I know for some of you that’s asking a lot. I know I haven’t exactly done anything to prove myself trustworthy. But if you ever believe that I’m telling the truth, believe it now.”

“Natasha.” Steve’s voice is quiet but steady. “We saved the world together. How could we not trust you?”

She laughs shortly, but there’s no humour in it. “I can think of a lot of reasons. I’m not like you. I’m not a good person, Rogers.”

“You have the heart of a warrior,” Thor tells her gently.

“I’m a spy.” She echoes Clint’s words from the Helicarrier. “Not a soldier.”

“We’re all soldiers,” Steve tells her.

Bruce shakes his head. “It’s not that black and white. It’s not all good and evil. Sometimes you know who you are. But sometimes the war comes when you’re not expecting it, and you don’t know whose side you’re on. Sometimes it’s just not that easy.”

Natasha looks up, staring at Bruce in surprise. She’s been so immersed in herself that she forgot that _Bruce_ of all people knows what it’s like to be at war with yourself. Bruce, of all people, knows what it’s like to lose control, understands Natasha’s fear of losing control.

She shivers slightly at the idea that these people _know_ her. These aren’t marks she can seduce and kill and leave behind in her wake of self-destruction. These are people she’s going to have to trust if she wants to get her partner back. She feels like an old rope; worn and frayed at the edges from being pulled too hard. She remembers telling Clint once that trusting someone was giving them the power to break you. She doesn’t think she can stand being broken again.

Bruce sits down beside her, careful to give her distance, and she hates him a little less because of it. “We’ll find him, Natasha.”

“I know.” She remembers the promise Clint had made her when she’d gotten back from Iraq, before New York and Loki and chaos. _I’ll always come back to you._ And despite herself, despite all the pain and the hurt and the lies she’s suffered, despite every instinct in her mind screaming that to trust and to love is to be destroyed, she believes him.

 ***

Natasha spends most of the flight in silence. She has to admit, being on the same team as Tony has its benefits (including, but not limited to, the private jet he was able to commandeer within an hour of Natasha insisting they go to Warsaw). She reaches into her pocket, with difficulty due to her broken knuckles, and pulls out Clint’s arrow. She hasn’t worn it since the battle but the chain feels just as familiar in her hands. She runs her finger obsessively over the pointed tip of the arrow, so focused that she doesn’t notice Steve until he’s sitting beside her.

“He’s more than a partner to you.” Steve’s voice is gentle, understanding, but it isn’t a question.

She doesn’t look at him. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand more than you think.”

“Can you explain my own mind to me, Rogers?” Her voice is cold and bitter and she hates herself for it. He doesn’t deserve her anger, not after he held her together and bandaged her broken knuckles in the training room. None of them deserve her anger.

“You think the ability to love makes you weak,” says Steve, cutting off her internal monologue. “You think it makes you less. But the only thing it really makes you is human.”

She closes her hand tightly around the arrow, feeling her hand twinge in protest. She revels in the pain. Pain is something she can understand. What she can’t understand is the uneasy feeling that Steve can see through all her walls in a way only Clint and sometimes Coulson can. _Could._ She keeps forgetting that Coulson is gone. First Coulson and now Clint; her partner, her best friend, the one who saved her life more times than she can count. The one she owes so much, and yet nothing because the debt is too great to ever be repaid. _You will never have anything to keep in this world_.

“I used to be untouchable,” she whispers, mostly to herself.

Steve smiles at her sadly. “None of us are untouchable.”

 ***

They follow Natasha through the darkening streets as the sun sets. None of them says what they’re all thinking; what if she was wrong? What if Clint isn’t in Warsaw and they’re wandering the city chasing a ghost? With each step that Natasha takes further into the city that remade her for the last time, she finally allows herself to remember.

She remembers staring down the shaft of Clint’s arrow, the point aimed at her heart, willing him to let it fly and end everything once and for all. She remembers the window shattering and the bullet in her shoulder and the look in Clint’s eyes when he told her he wasn’t going to let her die. She remembers nothing, and then she remembers waking up in the safe house _alive_ and safe and unharmed.

“Natasha?” Steve asks cautiously. She’s been quiet for too long. He’s attuned to her in a way that makes her almost uncomfortable because it reminds her too much of Clint and she does _not_ want him to remind her of Clint.

Her thoughts don’t belong to them. “I almost died the last time I was here,” she says conversationally. None of them ask her to elaborate. Not that she would have. That story doesn’t belong to them either.

 ***

The safe house is just as she remembers it. She picks the lock quickly and efficiently and slips through the door like a shadow, the rest of the team following behind her. She makes her way silently to the bedroom and her breath catches in her throat when she sees him at the window with his back to the doorway, silhouetted by the setting sun.

He speaks without turning around. “I thought it would be easier to start over if I came back to where it all started.”

The carefully constructed sentences she spent the flight rehearsing falter on her lips as she stares at him, framed by the sun, trying to find a new beginning among the wreckage of their past. Trying to find hope. Last time, Warsaw was about her rebirth. This time it’s his.

Her voice is barely a whisper. “Can I tell you something true?”

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“I stopped keeping score.” Silence. She stares at his back willing him to turn around, willing him to speak, to move, to give any indication that he heard her. The silence lasts for what feels like an eternity, and then she hears a muffled sob and her heart shatters into a thousand pieces. “Clint,” she whispers. “Please look at me.”

He turns towards her then, _finally_ , with tears in his eyes, and she can’t remember the last time she saw him cry and all she knows is that she loves him. Fiercely. Unconditionally. Irrevocably.

“Tasha.”

One word. Her name. His voice. She doesn’t care that the rest of the team is behind her, doesn’t care that they might be watching, doesn’t care about secrecy because they’ve been keeping to the shadows for too long and they’ve finally found the light and she wants to take his hand and run towards it.

He crosses the room in two strides and then his lips are on hers and everything feels right again. For a moment there is no New York and no Loki and no Coulson and no Avengers, there’s nothing but the two of them with no secrets and no lies and no debts between them.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against her mouth, his voice wrecked. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shhhh,” she soothes him gently, brushing the tears from his cheeks, tasting his sorrow on her tongue. “It’s okay, Clint. It’s okay.”

He shakes his head. “I made you a promise, Tasha.”

“You never broke it.”

“I left you. After all the times I told you I wouldn’t, all the times I told _myself_ I wouldn’t.”

Natasha takes his hand, guiding it slowly to the arrow at the base of her throat. “You never promised not to leave. You’ll always be leaving. I’ll always be leaving. You promised to come home.”

“Wrong word,” he tells her, the echo of words she spoke to him on a snowy New York evening that feels like centuries ago. “People like us don’t get a home.”

“Yeah we do,” she tells him, placing her palm over his heart. “This is home. You and me.”

“Tell me something true.”

“I love you.”

 ***

Clint’s conscious of her space on the flight back just like he always is, but Natasha leans against him deliberately, tucking her head into the space between his head and his shoulder. _“I don’t want to hide anymore,”_ she signs, the motions painstakingly slow because of her broken hands.

Clint takes her hands in his running his thumbs lightly over the bandages. “What happened?”

“I beat up a punching bag.”

“Why?”

She looks down, hesitates. “I couldn’t find a knife.”

Immediately his hands jump to her wrists, where they both know the scars are. They’re faded now, memories, but they’ll never go away. They’ll always be there as a reminder of the pain that never really leaves.

Clint grips her wrists tightly. “I don’t want to be the reason you hurt yourself.”

She shakes her head. “You’re the reason I don’t.”

He loops an arm around her waist, pulling her closer, and she drifts off to sleep not long after. She must be exhausted, he thinks, after New York and her nightmares and chasing him halfway across the world. She’s beautiful when she’s sleeping, all of her ferocity gone. His heart is bursting with how much he loves her, loves that she dragged three superheroes and a demigod to another continent just to bring him home. Loves that she wouldn’t let him be alone with his guilt even when it was what he wanted, what he deserved. He loves _her_.

“You two are full of surprises,” Steve says, sliding into the seat across from Clint.

“Yeah,” he sighs, at a loss for what to say. “I guess we are.”

“Listen, Clint,” Steve begins cautiously, looking nervous. “I know it’s not really my place to say this and I know she doesn’t need me to fight for her, but you didn’t see what it did to her, you leaving like that.”

“Shit, Steve, I know. I fucked up.”

“We’ve all been though a lot,” he continues, more gently. “But we’re a team now. Whatever comes at us, we can take it. Together.”

Clint swallows hard. He doesn’t deserve any of this. He looks down as he feels Natasha shift slightly in his arms. At first he thinks she’s having a nightmare but then he realizes she’s waking up. “Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” she whispers back.

“You okay?”

“Better now that you’re back.”

Her honesty floors him and the only thing he can say is “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

“I know that, too.”

“Tash.”

“Mmmm?”

“That sunrise in Iraq.”

She smiles slightly. “Yeah?”

“Tell me about it.”

“I told you.”

“I know. I want to hear it again.”

“It was beautiful,” she begins, and he spends the rest of the flight back listening to her paint a picture with her voice.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow. So this is over. And that's a little bit surreal and I'm kind of emotional.
> 
> Now obviously it's not OVER over. I have full intentions of writing a sequel (which is why this story is the first in a series now). The first chapter of the next one should be up by Monday (when this was supposed to be up before I got a little overexcited and posted it tonight instead). 
> 
> Anyways, logistical stuff out of the way, I want to thank you all SO MUCH for reading and supporting me and sticking with me to the end despite the fact that I suck, update sporadically, and occasionally write under the influence of alcohol. (It was ONE TIME.) You guys are the best and I love you all endlessly. I really hope this last chapter doesn't disappoint. <3
> 
> UPDATE: the sequel can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3420728/chapters/7493195)!!!

“I want to see him.” It’s the first thing Clint says in the morning as the sunlight streams through the window, lighting up Natasha’s hair like fire. She rolls over to look at him, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Who?”

“Coulson.”

“Clint-“

“I know what you’re going to say, Nat. That doesn’t change the fact that I need to do this.”

“I’m not letting you go alone.”

Clint lets out a deep breath, pressing his face into her shoulder. “I was hoping you would say that,” he mumbles. “Didn’t want to ask.”

“He was my handler, too. My friend. How could I not say goodbye?”

“I thought you already might have.”

She shakes her head. “Not without you.”

 ***

The sun is still rising as they drive to the cemetery, Clint behind the wheel and Natasha with her feet propped up on the dash and her head on his shoulder. They could almost be normal people if it weren’t for their destination. Part of him wants to keep driving, leave everything behind them and start over somewhere else. He doesn’t want to say goodbye, because a goodbye makes it real. A goodbye makes it over and there’s nothing he hates more than endings.

As if Natasha knows what he’s thinking, she takes his hand, the one not on the wheel, and squeezes it gently. “It’s okay.”

“I can’t do this, Nat. I don’t do goodbyes.”

“We owe him,” she says simply. It’s not a debt in the way she explained to Loki. It’s not obsessive and self-destructive. It’s a tribute to the man who gave them both second chances. The man who saved their lives when there was nothing left worth saving. _Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?_ They both do. But they also know what it’s like to be _remade_.

“I can’t do this,” Clint says again, as she’s waiting for him to get out of the car.

“You can,” she says. She takes his hand again and leads him through the cemetery.

They weave their way through gravestones; some old, some new, some so worn that the names are illegible. _Even the dead have secrets_ , Clint thinks. Natasha stops finally, in front of a nondescript gray stone with the inscription ‘Phil Coulson’. Clint doesn’t know what he was expecting. A monument, maybe. A plaque or a statue or something that proclaims to the world who Phil Coulson was in life. But there’s none of that. Of course there isn’t. He stares blankly at the gray stone, all that remains of the man who saved his life and the life of the woman beside him.

“He deserves more,” Clint whispers. “After everything he did for us, everything he did for the world. He deserves more than this.”

“I know that,” Natasha says softly. “And you know that. Isn’t that enough?”

Clint takes a step towards the gravestone, Natasha’s hand still held tightly in his. He looks back at her, lost. “Should I say something?”

”If you want.”

He takes another step forward, dropping her hand. He doesn’t speak, just stares at the grave at a loss for words with tears burning in his eyes. “I don’t know how to say goodbye,” he chokes out.

Natasha’s voice is gentle. “Do you want to be alone?”

“No!” he says quickly. “No. Please don’t leave me.”

Natasha walks forward until she’s standing next to him, leans her head against his shoulder to offer him what comfort she can. His arm comes up around her and she turns into him, welcoming the embrace. This isn’t as hard for her as it is for Clint, but it’s still hard.

Clint turns back to look at Coulson’s headstone. “You son of a bitch,” he begins. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you sent me to Warsaw.” He hears Natasha’s breath catch in her throat and he pulls her closer. “I didn’t realize it then, God, there’s so much I never realized. But you never wanted me to finish the job. You sent me on that mission because you knew I would save her life.” He blinks and his vision goes blurry as tears begin to fall in earnest. “I don’t deserve to be standing here, Phil. It’s not fair. I should be in your place. You gave me too many fucking second chances already.”

Natasha lifts her face up to look at him and her tear-filled eyes mirror his own.

“I don’t know what else to say,” Clint admits.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. She steps forward out of his embrace, laying a hand on the smooth marble of Coulson’s stone. “Thank you,” she says quietly. It’s not enough, but her tears are falling fast and hard and she couldn’t speak even if she wanted to.

She’s in Clint’s arms without remembering how she got there, and she’s shaking and his arms are shaking around her and he holds her so tightly she can barely breathe but it’s still not enough. They stand there, holding each other, and cry until they have no tears left.

“What do we do now?” Clint asks, his voice hoarse.

Natasha tilts her head to look up at him, eyes still wet and red-rimmed from crying. “We make sure he didn’t die for nothing,” she says.

“I love you,” he says.

“I know. Sometimes that’s the only thing I know.” She rises up on her toes to press her lips against his and Clint wraps his arms around her waist, holding her there.

“What do you think Coulson would say if he could see us making out in front of his grave?” Clint asks when he finally pulls back, pressing his forehead against Natasha’s. Her cheeks are flushed and there’s a small smile playing on her lips. Her eyes are still sad, but she looks alive. He tries to focus on _alive_.

“I think he’d be happy,” she says slowly. “I think he would want us to be happy.”

He releases his hold on her, reaching out to take one of her hands. “Come on,” he says gently, lacing his fingers through hers. “Let’s go home.”

“I’m already there.”

She bumps her shoulder against his as they walk back, two living people walking through a field of ghosts and memories. They’re still sad, but it’s a bittersweet kind of sad. It’s hopeful. Clint’s grateful for it. It’s been too long since he’s had any kind of hope.

Maria Hill is waiting for them outside the cemetery. Clint tightens his grip on Natasha’s hand, an unspoken plea. _Don’t let go of me._

“How did you know we’d be here?” Natasha asks. She has her guard up, but it’s nowhere near as strong as it usually is. The cracks in her façade and the sadness still leaking through them are visible to everyone. Clint squeezes her hand again and she offers him a small smile.

“Steve,” Maria offers.

“How did Steve know?” Clint asks.

“Lucky guess. Regardless, Coulson asked me to give these to you.” She holds out two pristine envelopes.

“Coulson?” Clint tries to disguise the hope in his voice, but he can’t help but wonder if there’s a chance that their handler made it out of the battle of New York alive.

Maria shakes her head sadly as if she knows what he’s thinking. “He told me to give these to you under one condition, that condition being that he was in a position where he was unable to deliver them himself.”

“Shit,” Clint says softly. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I’m sorry, guys.” Hill’s voice is gentler than either of them have ever heard it. “I really am.”

Natasha reaches out tentatively for the envelopes with her free hand. “So what do we do now?”

“Take a break,” Hill tells them. “Everyone knows you’ve both been through a lot. Stay in touch and come back when you’re ready. Whenever that is.”

 ***

Natasha spends the drive back to Stark tower turning the envelope over and over in her hands, running her fingers obsessively over her name written on the front in Coulson’s neat hand. She holds it with reverence, like it’s a piece of their handler. In a way, Clint supposes, it is. It’s the only piece of him they have left.

“I need to do this alone,” she says when they reach the tower. He understands. He doesn’t like it, but he understands. So as she walks off, Coulson’s envelope clutched tightly in her hand, Clint makes for the roof.

Coulson’s letter feels thick and heavy in Clint’s hand as he pulls it out of the envelope. He unfolds it slowly, carefully, nervous to read his handler’s last words to him. He wonders where Natasha is, if she’s feeling the same way. He’s seized by a sudden, insane desire to throw the letter off the roof, but he knows he owes it to Coulson to read it. No matter how much it hurts.

 

_Clint,_

_If you’re reading this, it means I’m not your handler anymore and for that, I’m sorry. Know that it wasn’t by choice. I hope it was a good death._

_I want you to know that I’m so, so proud of you. I wish the boy from Omaha could see the man you are today, because I know he’d be proud too. I watched you, a boy who didn’t think he deserved a second chance, turn into a man who saved the life of a woman he was sent to kill because second chances are all he believes in now. I watched a man riddled with the guilt of his past finally stop keeping track of his rights and wrongs. I watched you fall in love, Clint, and nothing has given me greater joy. Hold on to that love, because love and trust are hard to come by in this life._

_I hope that wherever you are, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me for not being there. I hope you’re not blaming yourself. I know you have a tendency to do that. You’re a phenomenal agent, Clint. A phenomenal shooter. But you’re an even better man. Don’t forget to let yourself be human._

_Look after Natasha. She needs you more than she’d ever tell you and she loves you so deeply. Don’t ever let her go._

_I’m proud of you, Clint. I’m so proud of the man you’ve become. I hope you are, too._

_With love from your handler, your friend,_

_Phil_

Clint holds the paper away from his face as his tears fall. He doesn’t want his tears to smudge Coulson’s final words to him because he wants to read them over and over until he has them memorized. He hears a small sound behind him and he turns. Natasha’s standing by the door to the roof with her letter clutched in her hand, her own face streaked with tears. _Don’t ever let her go._

_I won’t_ , he promises silently as he moves towards her and pulls her into his arms. _I won’t ever let go of you._ They hold each other and cry for what feels like the hundredth time. They don’t talk about the letters. They will, eventually, but the wounds are too raw right now.

Finally, Natasha pulls back. Takes his hand, leads him to the edge of the roof. She sits down, legs hanging over the edge, and Clint sits behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist so she’s leaning back against his chest with her head on his shoulder.

“I don’t remember my father,” she says quietly.

He presses his lips against the back of her head. “Sometimes it’s easier to not remember.”

“Coulson was the first father I ever had. Just like you’re the first home I ever had.”

“How are you feeling?” It’s been ages since he’s asked her that question.

“Lost,” she whispers.

“How can I help you?”

“Don’t leave me.”

_Don’t ever let go of her._ As if he ever could. He loves her so much it hurts. She’s easy to love and she’s hard to love and she’s fluid and ever-changing and he couldn’t let go if he tried. So he holds on.

 ***

They sit on the roof in silence as the sun sets and the stars come up around them. Natasha starts to shiver as the air around them gets cooler and Clint pulls her closer to keep her warm. He’s about to suggest they go inside, but she speaks first.

“Have you ever tried counting the stars?”

Clint laughs softly. It amazes him, the childlike wonder that consumes her sometimes. That despite having been through hell and back again, she’ll look up at the sky and try to count the stars because she wants to know how many there are. He loves her.

“It’s impossible,” she continues. “You think you can, at first. But then you’ll skip one or count one twice and then you’re lost and you realize you spent so much time counting stars that you forgot to look at the sky.”

“Are you looking at the sky now?”

He can feel her nod against him. “Sometimes I need to lose myself in it for a while.”

“Just don’t get so lost that I can’t find you,” he tells her quietly.

Silence. And then, “Clint?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, Nat. We’re okay.” She can hear the smile in his voice and it sounds like hope. “We’ll always be okay.”


End file.
